In any case, it’s certainly not a straight answer, as centuries of varied interpretations attest.   This anecdote is often seen as Jesus refusing to engage in politics. He declines to clearly answer an explicitly political question, and his riddle of an answer has the whiff of separating church from state. This text then is often used by Christians as a way of discouraging the mix of religion and politics. It is especially used by Christians when another Chrisitan is espousing a political perspective that makes us uncomfortable.  Please understand that the question posed to Jesus is not asked genuinely – and I will say/write more about that next week. But it is worth saying here that the question is not asked with a desire for understanding Jesus’ perspective: It is a trap. Whichever way Jesus answers is problematic. Not because it is political, but because it is partisan. For Jesus to answer in either direction would put him in a category with a specific existing political constituency. To radically oversimplify things for our current context, the ones asking the question are doing something akin to getting Jesus to tell them if he is a Republican or a Democrat. Those who confront Jesus aren’t seeking his wisdom, aren’t interested in learning from him: They want to know which group to put him in so that he can be more easily classified, managed, and dismissed.     Want to support our podcast? Give Here 

This week's episode of When Love Shows Up explores the role of outrage in media consumption, tracing its evolution from the days of Howard Stern’s controversial radio show to the present era dominated by social media. Rev. Phil reflects on how media companies profit from keeping audiences engaged through provocative content. He examines the addictive nature of outrage and its implications for our social interactions and mental well-being. Drawing on Christian principles, he advocates for a community centered on love and human connection as an antidote to the divisive and profit-driven nature of current media practices.   Want to support our podcast? Give Here 

While we were memorializing our beloved, millions of people were marching and demonstrating in cities across the country. Every record of this event I saw showed grieving and laughter in potent coexistence. Homemade signs that embody rage and humor. Sorrow and hope - neither strangers nor enemies. For these millions, disillusionment with our present reality has not undermined a belief in what can be, in what we can be. It is a mighty love that produces such sorrow and hope. A hope that does not acknowledge sorrow is all artifice and denial. But a sorrow without hope? I don’t want to know it and neither do you. We are built for hope.  The next day, we drove through 6 hours of rain to get home to our children. I reached the front door exhausted and held onto them for dear life. It is such a cliché to say my children give me hope. But clichés are clichés for a reason, aren’t they? It is not my kids’ innocence I love – in all honesty I don’t consider them all that innocent. Children experience anger and shame and fear and sorrow and joy and all sorts of what we call “big feelings” just as much as adults do. They’re clueless and naïve and idealistic and wholehearted, but I do not worship or idealize them.  

Blessing does not exist in a vacuum. Blessing does not exist solely as a reward for good behavior. Blessing is a calling. Blessing is a vocation. The reason Abraham is blessed is so that he will be empowered to bless others. The land he is given is meant to provide a homeland for a whole people. His name is meant to be great so that he can use it to help others. His children and children’s children are meant to facilitate and embody God’s love and blessing  to the whole world – to all the families of the earth.  I often struggle with the temptation to make myself the center of my own life. I am thinking about how my life will turn out. What will come my way, what will I accomplish. I want to be blessed in practical ways like Abraham, and like so many others I’ve known. Who wouldn’t want that? But I am not the center of the universe, and I should not be the center of my own life. As a Christian, I am supposed to place God at the center of my life – but I have to tell you that doesn’t mean I’m supposed to be a holy roller who is, as one old song goes,  so heavenly minded that I’m no earthly good.   No, the Christian is commanded to center God by serving God’s people – which to be clear is everyone. 

This is not Christian education. It is abuse.   You know it’s abuse in your heart. Because if anyone – a spouse, a partner, a sibling, a friend - ever loved your best friend the way we are told God loves us, you’d tell them to run, and you’d be right.   Spiritually abusive Christianity, however prevalent it may feel in today’s world, is not reflected in the life, words, and ministry of Jesus. If you are a Christian who is being taught you were born dead and undeserving of love, you are in an abusive relationship. If you are someone who has left the church because you could no longer digest such a violent, toxic message about yourself, your leaving was not apostasy: It was an act of love – it was you recognizing something sacred within yourself that deserves to be nourished. That is exactly what Jesus wants for you.  

Jesus was a victim of political violence. But the real political violence against Jesus began before he was ever beaten, whipped, or killed. It began long before the night he was arrested. From very early in Jesus’ public ministry there are accounts of people plotting to silence him by force. The first time he preached at his home synagogue, he outraged his neighbors such that they sought to throw him off a cliff. The narrative of his ministry is laced with the threat of violence against him.   But the political violence against Jesus goes further back than that. Shortly after his birth, his parents were forced to take him and flee the country: Herod, then the king of Israel, sought to kill the baby he saw as a threat to his power. The violence against Jesus went further – as Jesus was born into an occupied country; his safety and the safety of his family contingent upon the whims of the Roman Empire, subject to their ability to accept their systemic oppression without resistance.   I’ve been thinking more and more about how Dr. King said, “True peace is not merely the absence of some negative force—tension, confusion or war; it is the presence of some positive force—justice, good will and brotherhood.” He observed repeatedly that one does not need to strike or stab or shoot in order to be violent: Violence exists in the threat of violence; violence exists in the creation and perpetuation of a system that maintains the status quo through the threat of violence.   Want to support our podcast? Give Here 

I am a Christian. This means I have committed my life to following Jesus, to love like Jesus loves, and, for lack of a more attractive term, to obey Jesus. Jesus is crystal clear in his command that I love others the way he has loved me. It’s a good time to remember that the command to love is not a command to feel a certain way about someone. It is impossible for us to control all our feelings, and I don’t believe Jesus would give us impossible commands.   To love Charlie Kirk does not mean to ignore or rationalize the things about him I find objectionable or harmful. To love him is to honor the dignity of his humanity – to recognize that he and I are both creations of the same God. To love Charlie Kirk is to be for him – and this is tricky, I acknowledge. I do not mean it means to accept or go along with everything he says, or to hope he gets what he wants. No, to love him is to hope for his heart to be filled with love, for him to experience liberation from hatred, for him to know true joy.   This is a non-starter for a lot of people I love and respect. Because we are all caught up in the condition of believing love, liberation, and joy are only for people we think deserve it – that love, liberation, and joy are rewards for good behavior. But what if true love, liberation, and joy are the things that enable us to let go of hatred in the first place?  

Jesus did not take issue with this. For a people to understand themselves in relation to the God who made them, and to believe they have a purpose on this earth is empowering and beautiful. But Jesus noticed that certain people among him thought this relationship and purpose made them better than others – made their people somehow more worthy of God’s love and acceptance. They believed that they were an exceptional people.   That didn’t work for Jesus. He told parables highlighting the faithfulness of people outside their culture. He uttered prophetic warnings to the effect that if they weren’t interested in creating communities that authentically recognized the dignity of every human being, God would gladly find others to do it. Jesus’ point again and again was simple: Just because we matter to God, just because God gave us a purpose, does not make us exceptional. We are all people – and every person has the capacity to glorify God in ways you can’t even imagine.  I need to pause here and make it very clear that I do not believe the exceptionalism to which I refer is somehow a characteristic unique to the culture of ancient Israel, or of Jewish people. In our current times, we are seeing a horrifying surge in anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence in our country and across the globe. Christians in particular have an abysmal track record in terms of anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence. Of course there are and always have been Christians who have been supportive and respectful of our Jewish siblings. But some of the gravest threats to Jews throughout history have come from Christians, been condoned or undertaken by Christians. Want to support our podcast? Give Here 

I remember sitting next to my dad in a hospital room in Maine many years ago. He had accidentally overdosed on pain meds during his cancer battle and was in a coma. I sat in stillness next to his unnervingly quiet body in that unnervingly quiet room – helpless and useless. And, because I’m a religious guy, I pulled out my Bible. I turned it to the Book of Job. Maybe when you’re sad and scared you want something happy and hopeful: an inspirational Bible quote or cheery encouraging song. Not me. I want the saddest music possible. Music was not allowed in the ICU, so I read through the Biblical story of the man who lost everything he ever had and never got a good explanation for it. Nobody ever told him why his life fell apart, and no amount of faithfulness made it clearer for him. Job was simply miserable and clueless, and at the end he hadn’t learned a thing.   It made my day. Because in that moment I realized not that I should be hopeful or happy or positive or cheery: Instead I learned I was not unique in my misery. I was not alone – even in my pitiable pilgrimage. What a gift.  Want to support our podcast? Give Here 

By the time we got back to the parking lot we were beat. Our wives were nowhere to be seen. So we called them, and it turned out the appointment they’d made wasn’t done yet and they were 3 miles down the road and wouldn’t be ready for a while.   Martin and I looked at each other, and just started walking again. But we were no longer on the trail. We were on a sidewalk. Walking towards the wives and the minivan. Instead of creeks there were mini malls, instead of trees there were power lines and cell towers. Martin sighed, “Well I guess the hike continues.”   I shook my head emphatically and said, “No, Martin. The hike is over. Now we’re just two guys without a car.”  Intention matters. Want to support our podcast? Give Here https://redeemercincy.tpsdb.com/Give/podcast

I grew up a Christian who believed the best thing I could possibly do as a Christian was make other people Christians. I was taught and believed that people who weren’t Christian would go to Hell when they died and spend eternity in conscious torment for believing the wrong thing while on earth. If I could just make someone Christian, then I would be saving them from an endless loop of torturous agony. What’s more, these previously damned souls would now get to experience the nameless eternal joys of Heaven all because of me! What could be a higher aspiration?  Many Christians believe saving others from going to Hell is the purpose of life. And I think this is where it helps to have a real understanding of what Jesus asks of his followers. Jesus’ instructions to those who would act in his name is to serve others, to love others, to forgive the debts of others. Jesus is less interested in his followers trying to convince people something about God then he is in them embodying the loving presence of God. In other words, your job is not to save people, it’s to love them.   There is a world of difference between saving others and serving others.

I am often looking for ways to appear good to others, to justify my own goodness to myself, to you, to God. Jesus rejects this outright. “Don’t even call me good,” he says, though if ever one was meant to be called that, it would be him. Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he seems far less interested in people being good than he is in them being merciful, loving, forgiving, working for peace, justice, and equity, and above all, ready to spot the presence of God in the person right in front of them. Awareness, readiness, and willingness to do the work are infinitely more interesting to Jesus than abstractions like goodness.  When asked what matters most in this world to God, Jesus says loving God and loving your neighbor – and he makes it clear that these things are connected, and that they are on the same level. It is phrased as a commandment, yes, but more than that, this kind of love is a defining feature of anyone who says they follow Jesus. If I call myself a Christian and I do not love my neighbor, I am fundamentally missing the point. Conversely, if I do not call myself Christian, but I love my neighbor, I understand Jesus much better than the unloving Christian. And please remember that this love Jesus describes is not about sentiments and feelings – it’s about action. It’s about the practical work of caring for others.   Want to support our podcast? Give Here https://redeemercincy.tpsdb.com/Give/podcast

It is impossible not to think of the brown-skinned people, many of whom are of Mexican origin, who are being racially profiled, snatched off the streets and detained without due process all across our country so that we might be made great. It is also impossible to forget that this disaster occurred just a month after our own government announced plans to defund FEMA – our country’s federal emergency response program. While our own country seems to be unclear about who our neighbor is, firefighters from northern Mexico had no such confusion.  In Butler County Jail here in Ohio, sits a man named Ayman Soliman. He is an Egyptian refugee who has been in our country for over a decade. He fled Egypt under threat of death, and after surviving incarceration and torture because he spoke and acted in support of democracy during what has become known as the Arab Spring. He is a Muslim, and since living in the Cincinnati area, he has served as an imam in the local Muslim community, as well as a chaplain at Children’s Hospital, pastoring to people across religious and cultural affiliations. He has been charged with no crimes. He has devoted his life to the care of others. No reason has been given for the revocation of his asylum status. He has been imprisoned for nearly a month.

In this crossover episode, join hosts Tym House and Anny Stevens Gleason from our new podcast, The Priesthood of All Queer Believers as they welcome their first guest, The Reverend Philip Hart DeVaul. They discuss the intersection of queer identity and faith, addressing common misconceptions about 'pride as sin' and the hypocrisy within certain Christian traditions. Reverend DeVaul shares his personal story of his father's coming out and its impact on his faith. The conversation also covers the transformative power of embracing queer identity within religious spaces, the normalization of queer presence, and the importance of inclusive and affirming practices. This episode emphasizes the potential for growth and deeper understanding within the church through the inclusion and celebration of queer believers. 

The idea that my Christianity would be at odds with my patriotism makes me wildly uncomfortable. I hate it, really. For as long as I can remember I’ve been a Christian, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been American. I remember watching a US aircraft carrier docking in San Diego. I was in 6th grade, and that ship was carrying a family friend who had been deployed in the Persian Gulf. As the ship pulled in, its deck lined with uniformed sailors, the loudspeakers blared “I’m Proud to be an American” and I felt it in my 11-year-old bones. And God bless America, I thought. This country that has formed me has been in my prayers since I could pray.   I love Jesus and I love America, and I am not interested in changing either of those things any time soon. I have to admit, though, that I have been conditioned to believe that my love of country and my obedience to Jesus are synonymous – or at least that they are cozy bedfellows, resting comfortably with each other side by side, never at odds with one another. And this is profoundly problematic.   America is not Christian, and it never was. Even if the majority of people who created this country identified as Christian, it was not a Christian country at its founding. And it wasn’t founded with Judeo-Christian values, because there is no such thing as Judeo-Christianity. That phrase is a modern invention with no teeth and less meaning. And as a lifelong (and professional) Christian, I am fine with America not being Christian. I just want us to be honest about it.  

Last week, I wrote about God’s pronouns. In particular, I sought to make the point that a diligent reading of our Scriptures would inform a more expansive understanding of God’s identity. This is nothing new: It’s not all that groundbreaking to suggest that how we read the Bible will inform the way we experience God in every day life.   Sometimes I forget that the influence is supposed to work both ways: That the way I experience God in my every day life should inform how I read the Bible. But this happens and is, I believe, a healthy way to interact with Christian Scriptures. We want to disabuse ourselves of the notion that our relationship with the Bible – and by extension, with God – is a one-way street: The Bible simply speaking and us simply receiving. A thoughtful, authentic, and heartfelt relationship with God in our daily life will change the way we read and understand the texts we have. It is a give and take, not a one-way street.   Last week I made an argument for a more expansive use of pronouns and gender identities when speaking of God. And as I said/wrote then, I believe there is ample reason to do so based on what we see throughout our Bible.

For much of the history of our church most Christians have referred to God as he. There is nothing inherently wrong with referring to God as he. “He” appears to be the most preferred pronoun for the various authors of the writings that comprise the Bible. But if we are honest, there is something inherently wrong with referring to God exclusively as he. When we can see very clearly that our own Scriptures describe God as he, she, and they, but we insist only on using the masculine expression of God, we are refusing to acknowledge authentic truths about God’s own identity – God’s own being.   What do you think that does for us? To be so stubborn and exclusive in the way we ascribe gender God when speaking of her? How can we pretend it does not reinforce the basic idea – even subliminally – that God is male? That’s what “he” means in our collective conscience.   When we see portrayals of God as a big, bearded man on a cloud we think nothing of it. When we see God portrayed as a woman, we consider it first and foremost as a political statement. And if God were portrayed as non-binary or transgender? How might you respond to that? Would your first thought be joy that God is being represented in one of the ways that is biblically accurate? Or would you be offended by the audacity of it? Challenged by it? Irritable and discomfited?  Well, and what’s so bad about being offended or discomfited when thinking about God? God offends people all the time – especially those who seek to be the most faithful. God challenges and upsets our precepts and prejudices – every single one of us. If our worship and devotion to God is meant only for our own comfort and solace, we sorely misunderstand and even dishonor the God we purport to exalt.  

Each of us knows in our own marrow the answer to Cain’s disingenuous question. Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes. Yes, you are. Yes, I am. The murder of Abel is horrific. But the question with which Cain seeks to cloak his guilt is itself an act of violence. Am I my brother’s keeper is ugly and violent because it trumpets a callous indifference to the way the God of love has ordered the world. God built humans for relationship and connection. Cain and Abel are certainly each their own person – and also, they belong to each other in a unique and powerful way that has sadly escaped Cain’s understanding.  Cain may be lying when he says he does not know Abel’s whereabouts – but perhaps the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is asked in utter sincerity. It is exactly that kind of missing the point that would lead a person to disregard their own sibling’s humanity. Cain’s own fear and self-preservation blinds him to the truth that yes, he is Abel’s keeper, as Abel is his keeper. Cain himself is deceived. But God is not, and neither are we.   Which is why it is so shocking to see the sheer violence and inhumanity we are willing to accept in our own time and place. It is not just that the racially targeted rounding up, incarcerating, and deporting of people in America is unjust and criminal – though it is unquestionably both of these things: It’s that it is intentional in its cruelty and dehumanization. ICE seeking to pull children out of schools to arrest them, to scoop families up at graduation ceremonies, deporting US citizens, and legal American residents without anything resembling due process or respect for human dignity, the grotesque photo ops in front of incarcerated men – these are terrorist acts. They are quite literally designed to cast fear in the hearts of every Latino living in America.  

I pray a lot more now, as you might expect from a professional Christian. Of course, I lead prayers in worship on Sundays. As a parent, I pray with my children before meals and bedtime. When I am invited to a hospital to see a newborn child, I pray for little babies as I hold them. Here is the prayer I pray: “Watch over your child, O Lord, as her days increase; bless and guide her wherever she may be; Strengthen her when she stands; comfort her when discouraged or sorrowful; raise her up when she falls; and in her heart, may your peace which passes understanding abide all the days of her life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” I didn’t make that one up: it’s in the Episcopal prayer book. What do I believe about a new life and what my hopes are for them? I have decided to let this prayer shape my belief. When I show up at the end of someone’s life, I pray for them. Sometimes they are somewhat aware of that. Most of the time they are not.  Here, from the same prayer book, is what I pray: “Deliver your servant, O Sovereign Lord Christ, from all evil, and set him free from every bond; that he may rest with all your saints in the eternal habitations; where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” I do not always know what I believe about death. These words I pray are not simply a comfort: They are a challenge. They push me to accept the things I cannot change, and to find God even in death. Jesus says to pray for those who hate you. What a command.

Crucifixion, too, was common in the Roman Empire. More public, more long-lasting, more inefficient, more painful even than stoning. The victims of this form of violence were stripped down naked and forced to carry the heavy horizontal piece of their cross to the site of their death. And again, none of this inhumane brutality was accidental. It was a tactic of terror. The cruelty was the point. Peter knew the score. Jesus had told him many times before that walking the way of love in a cruel world would have its cost. And Peter had seen what it did to his friend. Peter was undaunted. Once you know the power of love, the magnificence of grace, the friendship of God, I mean what else is there? They bound him and took him to that place he did not want to go, but Rocky was Rocky – stubborn even in his humility, immovable once he knew what he knew. He said, “I’m no Jesus. If you’re gonna kill me, hang me upside down.” Peter had worked the last several decades in hopes that he could simply live into the faithfulness for which he was born. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be worthy of it, worthy of the love that had transformed his whole life. So he used the last bit of rockiness he had to try in his own way to show he was not kidding around about the work of love. The hope was the point.