Human Nature, Divine Nature (2 Corinthians 5:16-21)

 When I was little, sometimes I’d walk into the living room where Dad was watching a movie on TV. He liked westerns, like his parents before him.

These shows and movies were only mildly interesting to me. I would have much rather been watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. 

But wanting to feel grownup, I’d watch. And sometimes, trying to figure things out, I’d ask Dad who the good guys were, and who the bad guys were.

And Dad would tell me: those guys with the white hats, they’re the good guys. And those guys with the black hats, they’re the bad guys.

Well, that made sense. It kept things simple. I liked that…It was all as plain as day; black and white. Literally.

These days, that “white hat/black hat” terminology has shifted over to the world of computer hackers. "White hats" are ethical hackers who use their skills to identify vulnerabilities in systems and networks, while "black hats" are malicious hackers who exploit those vulnerabilities for personal gain or harm.

Anyway, I brought that “white hate/black hat” way of understanding the world with me to my reading of the Bible. It was a way of understanding the Bible that was taught to me in Sunday School.

⚫In the Bible, there are good guys and bad guys. Abraham. Moses. David. These are the good guys, the guys who, if they were in a western, would be wearing the white hats.

But Pharaoh, Goliath, Haman…people like that… these are the bad guys. 

I think I even pictured Abraham, Moses, and David wearing white robes, and Pharaoh, Goliath, and Haman wearing robes of darker colors. In this way, they matched the heroes and villains of those westerns Dad liked to watch.

But as I grew older, I began to study these stories a little more deeply, a little more intently. I began paying attention to details that I had ignored before, or which were skipped over in Sunday School.

Abraham, for example: could he really be considered all good if he was willing to sacrifice his own son? And what was it about that episode where Abraham pretended his wife was his sister, just to save his own butt? What in the name of White Lotus is that all about?

And David… the greatest hero of the Hebrew Bible… he committed sexual assault on Bathsheba, then tried to cover it up by having Bathsheba’s husband killed. How do you reconcile that with his status as the Bible’s greatest hero?

These Biblical heroes weren’t as innocent as I thought…

My realization that these Biblical heroes weren’t 100% pure and innocent came at a time when I was also learning that the United States, the land of my birth, the country I loved, was also not as innocent as I had been led to believe, that this country was built, in part, on slave labor, genocide, and colonialism.

I had to unlearn some of the things I had been taught, which is never easy. I had to accept the fact that things weren’t all black and white, good and bad; that every hero has a flaw or defect.

Well, at least Jesus was (and is) all good. Except: I couldn’t quite understand why Jesus washed Judas’ feet at the last supper. Jesus knew Judas was going to betray him. He knew Judas was the bad guy, the villain in this story… Yet Jesus knelt before Judas and honored Judas by washing his feet.

That made no sense.

All of a sudden, things weren’t as clear to me as they once were. Abraham, David, Judas—all of them—their hats were neither pure black nor pure white. None of them was either all good and innocent, or all bad and evil. They all had a mixture of good and evil in them; good, and sin, mixed together.

It took awhile, but gradually I realized the point the Bible was trying to make. And even though it took awhile, I learned to cast aside those categories of “all good” and “all bad,” and learned to place people in a new category: human.

Which, by the way, is another reason I like the movie Brother Bear. That was the first Disney  movie I remember that didn’t have a clearly defined hero fighting against a clearly defined villain…no heroes. No villains. Just humans learning how to be better than they are; good but flawed humans, learning about love and grace and confession and repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation.

As I continued growing and learning, I realized that what I was learning applied to almost everything…that everything was more complex than I had thought.

⚫In school I learned about matter, and I learned about waves of energy, and that these were two different things.

But then I learned that photons of light sometimes behave like particles of matter, and sometimes behave like energy. They defy easy categorization.

And I learned about electrons. Sometimes they are here. Sometimes they are there. Sometimes they are both here and there, which doesn’t make any sense, and yet, it’s true.

And I learned about e=mc², and the theory of relativity, and dark matter; and I learned that no one really understands dark matter, not even the world’s best scientists who study it…

These are things that defy simple categorization or explanation. Things that can be two things at once. Things that don’t make rational sense, but that's how they are, at least to the extent that we are able to understand things.

And if we allow ourselves some time to really ponder such things (not make sense of them, ...but just ponder them) we dip our toe into the amazing mystery of the reality of God.

When I think about God… many questions arise. We study the Bible and find answers there, but, for me, every answer leads to even more questions and mysteries.

This is also something that used to drive me crazy. I wanted easy, simple answers for God. It made me understand the attraction many people have to religious leaders and churches who are all too willing to provide those simple, easy answers.

But I suppose if I could reduce God to something simple and easy, then God would no longer be God. If God is easy and simple to explain, then that god is but merely an idea of my own making. 

So I’ve learned to just be in awe of the wonder and mystery of God…, in the same way that I can marvel at how light can be both energy and matter, and how electrons can be both here and there, and how energy can equal mass times the speed of light, squared, without needing an explanation of how that is possible.

In the first chapter of John’s gospel, Christ is described as the Word… John describes Christ as the Word, the Word that was life, the life that is light for all people; a light that shines in the darkness.

And it’s interesting that light is used as a description for Christ. Light, which is a particle, and a wave of energy, just as Christ is both God, and human. How can one being be both? How can one being be two things at once? I don’t know. This is a lot more complicated than telling who’s good and who’s bad by the color of their hat.

How do you think of Jesus? Do you think of him as more human, or more God? … In many Bible stories, Jesus seems very human, and that’s how I usually think of him… But of course, he is also God. In the beginning, he was with God, and he was God…

I’ve been reading some material lately that emphasizes this. And I am left in awe at how Christ is so much more mysterious and wonderful than I am capable of comprehending.

It stretches the imagination.

And then, to add even more wonder and mystery to it all, we heard in today’s scripture that anyone in Christ is a new creation. In Christ, we are made into something new… something more-than-human. 

Or, maybe that “new creation” was there all along, but had been forgotten. In Genesis, it says that we are all made in the image of God; the image of God dwells in us. There is a spark of divinity in each of us. 

⚫That spark of divinity was made visible in Christ—It was literally made visible at the transfiguration, which we heard about a few weeks ago—and when we unite ourselves with Christ, and become one with Christ, we become, or become aware of, that more-than-human nature within us.

And yet, at the same time, we are human.

And humans, to repeat what I said earlier, are neither perfectly good, nor perfectly evil. We’re not perfect; but we are good.

There is goodness within us. There is goodness within you. And that goodness goes back to the moment you were created.

Modern Christianity likes to talk about original sin, but what about original goodness? The goodness that was present when humans were first created, and pronounced “very good” by God?

Ignoring sin is bad, but it’s also bad to focus solely on sin, and forget our inherent goodness.

I read last week that a lot of people carry with them heavy burdens of shame. Some of it is from things they did when they were children, when they didn’t know better. Some of it is because of things done to them, yet the blame was placed upon them, by themselves, or by those who wanted to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions.

And this shame that people carry around… it weighs people down. For many, it is a cause of depression. For others, it prevents them from living their lives as fully as they can.

And I think one reason we carry this shame is that we still think of the world in terms of white hats and black hats. And we feel that if we’re not perfect in every way, then we don’t deserve the white hat. And if we don’t deserve the white hat, then the only other option is the black hat.

Look. No one deserves the white hat. And no one deserves the black hat. We need to look at ourselves, and those around us, in a new way.

Jesus helps us do that. 

He welcomed and embraced those who carried heavy burdens of guilt and shame. He comforted them. If they needed healing, he healed them. In whatever way they needed it, he made them well. He restored them to wholeness. And sent them on their way, which means he made it possible for them to move forward with their lives.

That’s the ministry of reconciliation Christ offers. 

Though we may have been broken, in Christ we are made whole. Though we may carry guilt and shame, none of that is counted against us, and in Christ we are reckoned as righteous. 

We are not perfect; none of us. But neither are we all evil. None of us is beyond the grace of God. 

We are made right with God, because of our inherent goodness; because of the image of God that is within us; and because Christ has reconciled us to God, uniting us forever with the one who made us.

A Specific Invitation (Isaiah 55:1-9)

 🖤Valentine’s Day was coming up. It was my last year of elementary school, the last year when students typically bring Valentines for everyone in the class. 

I had an idea, which I thought would be hilarious: I knew that I needed to write on each card the name of the person I was giving it to; but what if I sealed the card up in the envelope, but on the envelope, just wrote, “whosit.” Every envelope would say “whosit.”

It would work, because if I wrote the name on the card clearly enough, I could just see the name through the thin paper of the envelope, and still deliver the right card to the right person. Everyone would wonder how I did it. 

The plan worked perfectly. My classmates laughed, and wondered how I did it. However, the long-term effects were minimal, as it did not quite improve my social standing the way I hoped that it would. 

I share this with you because I knew, even as a kid, that a Valentine had to have someone’s name on it. 

You can’t just send a Valentine or an invitation and not put someone’s name on it. You can’t write, “Dear Valentine, whoever you are…” No! 

Same with an invitation. If you’re inviting someone to a party, you don’t say, “You’re invited! I want you there… whoever you are…”

Valentines and invitations need to be specific.

⚫In today’s scripture, the prophet is issuing an invitation. And the prophet is specific about who is being invited.

The invitation is given specifically to those who are thirsty, to those who are hungry, to those who have no money.

The prophet could have just said, “Come, everyone! Whoever you are! Come, eat and drink! All are welcome!”

But no; the prophet directed the invitation to specific groups of people. “Come, you who are thirsty; come, you who are hungry; come, you who have no money.”

In the next chapter, Isaiah extends another invitation; and, again, the prophet is specific about who it is that is being invited. 

In chapter 56 Isaiah says: “to the eunuchs…I will give a monument and a name, an everlasting name… and to the foreigners…I will bring you in, and make you joyful in my house of prayer; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

You might be familiar with that last part, the part about God’s house of prayer being a house of prayer for all peoples; but maybe you never realized that this statement of welcome was addressed specifically to eunuchs and foreigners.

It’s a specific invitation, addressed to specific people, for one very specific reason.

See: eunuchs and foreigners had long been excluded from the temple. In fact, Deuteronomy 23 specifically mentions eunuchs and foreigners as being prohibited from the assembly of the Lord.

And in all the generations since, up to Isaiah’s time, eunuchs and foreigners had been singled out for exclusion and persecution. They had been denied the right to enter the sanctuary and worship, and to take their place among God’s people.

Because they had been denied their rights and had been specifically excluded, Isaiah felt the need to specifically include them, and specifically invite them and welcome them, by name, into the house of the Lord.

It’s the same with those who are thirsty, those who are hungry, those who have no money. Isaiah knew that they were victims of injustice legislated by kings, something that went against God's desire for humanity; so Isaiah knew it was important to specifically include them, invite them, and welcome them by name.

So in Isaiah’s vision of a world that follows God’s ways, the thirsty, the hungry, and the poor—and foreigners and eunuchs—receive a specific invitation and welcome, to receive their share of God’s abundance.

The invitation, the promise, and the welcome are given specifically to those who have been historically prevented from receiving these gifts and blessings.

Isaiah knew that it was important to invite them, specifically, by name.

⚫Many generations later, there was a disciple of Jesus named Philip, who was traveling through the wilderness from Jerusalem to Gaza. On his way, he encountered a man who—get this!—was both a eunuch and a foreigner! He was a eunuch from Ethiopia!

Philip knew this man was a foreigner, because he was riding in a chariot, and the chariot had on it symbols of Candace, the queen of Ethiopia. 

And Philip knew this man was a eunuch, because—well, I’m not sure. But eunuchs often presented themselves as androgynous; genderqueer; nonbinary. If they were castrated early enough in life, their voice and appearance would be affected. And maybe there was insignia on him that indicated he was a eunuch. (Maybe it was the earrings we see in this, I’m sure, highly accurate image!)

And—get this—this eunuch from Ethiopia was reading from the book of Isaiah; and when he and Philip met on that road, the eunuch asked Philip to help him understand what he was reading.

And then, he asked Philip if he could be baptized!

Well, Philip knew that baptism was, among other things, a way of welcoming people into the fellowship of believers. 

And Philip also knew that eunuchs, and foreigners, had traditionally been excluded from the fellowship of believers.

Yet Philip decided to baptize him anyway, and welcome him into the church.

And this story appears in Acts, chapter 8, because Luke, the author of Acts, wanted foreigners to know that they were specifically invited and welcome, and Luke wanted eunuchs to know that they also were specifically invited and welcome.

For Luke, just saying “all are welcome” wasn’t enough. Luke included this story, because Luke knew that groups that had been traditionally excluded needed a specific invitation, to let them know that, YES, the welcome included even them.

In fact, this was so important that Luke dedicated half a chapter to this story, a story that specifically emphasizes how eunuchs and foreigners were to be welcomed and included among the people of God.

Luke knew that an invitation that was both bold and specific was needed.

⚫Then we have the radical welcome offered by the apostle Paul. Throughout Paul’s writings, we see a specific invitation given to the Gentiles, and specific instructions given to the Jews on how they are to welcome and include Gentiles. 

Many of the Jews who were followers of Jesus weren’t sure about welcoming Gentiles. They harbored prejudices against the Gentiles, and thought that the Gentiles needed to become Jews first before they could become followers of Jesus.

So Paul goes to great lengths to instruct his fellow Jews on how the Gentiles should be welcomed. In the book of Galatians, Paul even goes so far as to say that, in our baptism, we are no longer Jew or Gentile, but we are all one in Christ Jesus.

Paul also specifically mentions women and slaves, two other groups of people who hadn’t been fully included among God’s people. In other words, Paul specifically affirms Gentiles, and specifically affirms women, and specifically affirms slaves, as people who are a part of the fellowship of believers.

All these biblical writers—Isaiah, Luke, and Paul—felt it was important to be specific about who they were welcoming into the church, inviting them by name.

I could go on. The book of Ruth, for example—that whole book was written to show how Moabites, a group that had been historically excluded, were to be included and welcome among God’s people. 

And Jesus—Jesus specifically mentioned Samaritans, to cite one example; he specifically mentions Samaritans and lifts them up precisely because they were so hated and persecuted against by the Jews. 

Prejudice against Samaritans was incredibly strong, and so Jesus knew they needed to be welcomed and affirmed by name. Just saying “all are good, all are welcome,” isn’t specific enough. Those who had been persecuted and condemned for far too long needed to be mentioned by name. They needed a specific invitation.

⚫So it’s clear that scripture calls on us to issue invitations that are specific, and to offer a welcome that is specific. Identifying oppressed people by name, saying “we especially welcome you,” is important.

That’s why FCC and many other congregations have declared themselves to be “Open and Affirming.” It’s why we are specific in mentioning the LGBTQIA+ community —the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, asexual community— when we talk about the welcome we offer. 

Just saying “all are welcome” isn’t enough. We need to be specific in our invitation, mentioning by name those who have, in the past, been excluded, and who are still excluded in many places today.

In fact, this is even more important in 2025, now that hate against the queer community, and against those who are transgender in particular, is on the rise. 

Transgender rights are threatened. Not even just threatened; they are already being taken away. My cousin got a new passport a few weeks ago, but the government refused to honor his gender identity, and marked him as a female on his passport. Because that doesn’t match his identity and doesn’t match any other form of ID he has, he now cannot leave the country. The right to travel has been taken from him.

When rights are being taken away, when groups are being excluded and persecuted, it’s more important than ever to be specific in our invitation.

When I start each worship service by mentioning my pronouns, I’m not doing it to be political. But I know that among transgender people, and especially among transgender youth, rates of depression, suicide and destructive self-medication are astronomical. 

However, having even one affirming adult in their life can reduce the risk of suicide for a young transgender person by 40 percent.

So, it’s not about politics. It’s about saving lives. When we are specific in our invitation, we are saving lives. 

I admit, years ago, when I first started getting to know some transgender people, I was uncomfortable. As I got to know them, my discomfort faded. But even back when I was first starting to learn, I knew that my discomfort was a small price to pay for saving people’s lives.

A few blocks from my home, there is a church with a sign out front that says, “Black Lives Matter.” There’s another example of extending a specific invitation. 

Why can’t they just say, “all lives matter?” Why do they need to single out Black lives?

I hope that, by now, the answer to that is clear. Black lives have historically not mattered in this country. Black lives have too often not been affirmed, or welcomed, or celebrated. 

In many ways, that’s still true today.

So it’s important to extend a specific invitation to those who have been denied invitations in the past.

Imagine if, when Jesus left the 99 sheep to go find and save the one that was lost, that the other 99 started complaining, and saying: “Why are you going after that one lost sheep? What about the other 99? Don’t we matter, Jesus?”

Obviously, all the sheep matter to Jesus. But the one that was lost needed some extra attention, so that he could be safely brought back into the flock.

We here at FCC are still growing, still learning. (I’m still growing and learning.) We’ll always be learning and growing. We don’t get everything right all the time. We make mistakes, and we fall short at extending a sincere and specific welcome in all the ways that God calls us to.

Since Lent is a season of repentance, let us repent of those mistakes: our failure to welcome, our failure to be specific…

and let us commit to growing, and learning…

Let us commit to following the example set by Jesus and by the prophets and by the entire witness of the gospel, to do the best we can at welcoming the world to the Lord's Table; to improving the welcome we offer; and to being specific in that welcome whenever we can.