Sermons

First Christian Church

“Walking Bundles of Contradiction”

Matthew 10:40-42

Maybe the best way to unpack these verses is to begin with a story about a lighthouse keeper:

For thirty-one years a lighthouse keeper named Farquhar (Far-qua) McGillivray (Mac-gill-uh-fray) tended the Rubha (Roo-uh) Mor (More) light off the Scottish coast. Night after night he climbed the iron stairs, trimmed the wick, polished the lens, and kept the flame burning through gales that rattled the tower like a tin can. Historians later noted that because of his remote posting, Farquhar almost never actually saw a ship pass safely by. He kept the light burning for vessels he could not observe, for sailors whose gratitude he would never hear, for a harbor he could barely make out on clear days.

When a journalist once asked him if the isolation ever made him doubt the point of his work, he reportedly said, “The light doesn't need me to see the ships. It just needs to keep shining.”

The way that story applies to our text is it illustrates what a disciple can expect in return for faithfulness. In terms of this physical plane of existence not much. To bring this even closer to home we only need to consider the verses that precede our text:

“Do not think that I've come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law (a difficult relationship anyway); a man's foes will be those of his own household.”

Jesus identifies discipleship as resulting not in any type of physical or relational gain but can actually rupture the most important relationships in our lives. If you think following Jesus is going to bring about material rewards or relational gain you've got it all wrong. Richard Rohr once characterized following Jesus as “winning by losing.”

What he means is by learning how to let go of the egos desire for control and surrendering to challenges by embracing vulnerability we open up the path that leads to transformation. Transformation is the true goal for a sincere disciple of Christ. Spiritual gain, not physical or material, is what we're called to seek and it's absolutely crucial to get that right.

The reward received by those that embrace either a prophet or a righteous person the text speaks of is decidedly a spiritual one. The Right Reverend Michael Curry a retired Bishop of the Episcopal Church can tell us more about such rewards:

There will be a time when God's GPS points you in a direction that makes people uncomfortable. It may make you uncomfortable. The evolution of long-held beliefs can be a spiritual earthquake; the ground beneath us shaking, the very fault lines of our identity shifting and seeking to resettle. But if we can make it through, we find the reward: not an easy journey but a share of what the Bible calls “peace that passes all understanding,” the peace of knowing we are living love's way, without contradiction....

We humans are walking bundles of contradiction. I know that I am, and experience suggests that I am not alone in that. As people often describe relationships... “It's complicated.” It is and we are.

Rev. Curry begins by describing uncomfortable situations God puts us in with other people and I find this is a constant occurrence in ministry. This week when I came to work there was an SUV parked in our lot which I didn't think much about because people often leave their cars at our church for various reasons. It was also in too good of shape to be abandoned and I started working and forgot about it.

The next day it was still there and that's when I noticed it had a for sale sign in it. I assumed it would have a phone number written on it, which it did, and I wrote it down with the intention of calling the owner. It struck me as presumptuous to attempt to sell a car from our lot without permission and I struggled with how to speak to them in a pastoral manner. I was pretty sure I'd have to be firm and tell them to come and get the car.

I made the call and she identified herself as Katie who lives across the street from our church. I said, “Are you Lincoln's wife?” And she replied that she was, so I immediately felt a connection and relaxed a bit. She said she'd been trying to reach someone in the church to see if it was okay to leave her car there with a for sale sign in it.

I told her I didn't have a problem with that, and from there she spoke about our church and how we've been good neighbor's over the years. She was especially enthusiastic about the “artistic” signs that Linda has been displaying on Thursdays conveying messages of peace and goodwill and I said Linda was our resident prophet.

Anticipating calling someone to be confrontational with them to establish some type of boundary is always uncomfortable, but I find it happens a lot in ministry. God's GPS does often point me in a direction that leads to uncomfortable situations.

The reward for following God's GPS is primarily spiritual. Rev. Curry describes it as a “peace that passes all understanding.” This peace results from transcending the contradictions in our minds that are a result of dualistic thinking. The uncomfortable encounter with others drives us toward a deeper spiritual reality which is non-dualistic.

It really amounts to thinking in a different manner where it becomes possible to drop down into a peace that is not dependent upon outside forces. It is a peace that always resides within us but is typically masked by the contradictions that come from dualistic thinking. In the following meditation Father Rohr describes the transcending of dualistic thinking as a “beginners mind:”

The dualistic mind is the one we're all educated into. It's the one that gets us through the day, helping us make important distinctions and necessary judgments, pointing us to the left or right. It's essential for the advent of the scientific, industrial, and now technological revolutions, so we're all grateful for it. It is good and necessary as far as it goes, but let me be clear, it doesn't go far enough! The dualistic mind cannot deal with the biggies: love, death, suffering, God, infinity, and the very notion of grace.

To balance what I see as an overreliance on dualistic thinking, we have to find ways to practice thinking in a different way, where we can receive the moment as an open field. I call it the non-dual or contemplative mind. In that space, we don't have to divide the field or reject anything we don't understand as wrong. We don't have to eliminate everything that is mysterious, negative, painful, or problematic. With the contemplative mind we can leave the field open.

By leaving the field open you're no longer making judgments about things or people being right or wrong, good or bad, positive or negative. By leaving the field open you're enabled to accept everything you encounter and beyond that experience a wholeness or a sense of being connected to everything around you. In the most profound of mystical experiences one feels as if you are everything. At that point you're experiencing the world the way God does or the way Jesus did when he walked the earth.

This is precisely why Jesus is so often difficult to understand because he's experiencing the world with a non-dual perception where enemies can be loved and persecutors can be prayed for. We can never fully appreciate the teachings until we too see the world holistically with a non-dual mind.

Rev. Mitch Becker

June 28, 2026

Port Angeles

First Christian Church

“The Sacrifice of Ishmael”

Genesis 21:8-21

This story about Ishmael comes nestled between the better known stories of Isaac's miraculous birth and his near sacrifice at Mount Moriah. It begins with Sarah seeing Ishmael (Ish-mail) teasing her son Isaac and this irritates her to the point she tells Abraham to get rid of Ishmael. A further justification for this is she doesn't want him to share in the inheritance after Abraham dies.

In ancient Hebrew culture men were allowed to have multiple wives with no set legal limit to how many and Abraham had three in all. Abraham is deeply hurt because of Sarah's directive, after all, Ishmael is his biological son of the slave woman Hagar (Hay-gaar).

By divine intervention God speaks to Abraham counseling him to do what Sarah says and to not worry about it because his dependents will come through Isaac. This is a clear indication that Isaac will be a patriarch of the chosen people.

By the same token, God assures Abraham that Ishmael will also become a patriarch but not of God's chosen people. Ishmael will be a patriarch of the Arab nations. With this reassurance from God Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael off into the desert with a little bit of food and water. Soon the water is gone and she places Ishmael under a bush and sits apart from him because she can't endure watching her child die.

For the second time in the scriptural account God appears to Hagar (or an angel of God – in the Old Testament the line between the two is often blurred) and assures her that Ishmael will be alright and beyond that he'll become a great nation! Then a well of water appears and she goes to it to refresh both herself and Ishmael and from then on God looks after the boy.

One striking feature of this story is the inclusive nature of it. Hagar's ethnic origin is Egyptian but in a wider sense she represents any foreign slave. She was Sarah's slave who then gives her to Abraham because she couldn't have children. Abraham accepts the gift making Hagar his wife and consequently becomes the father of Ishmael.

All of this activity speaks to a certain level of inclusiveness though Hagar is a foreigner and undoubtedly considered by both Abraham and Sarah as socially inferior without any personal authority. Further Sarah legally owned Hagar of which Abraham would consider her as a secondary wife.

But it's the inclusiveness of God that serves as an example for us. To continue, Sarah's abusive treatment of Hagar did not begin with our text but first appears a couple chapters prior. When Hagar becomes pregnant she gets haughty about it and feels she's moved a couple notches up the social ladder. Hence, she looks upon Sarah with a certain degree of disdain and Sarah doesn't like it.

In response Sarah so torments Hagar that she runs away into the desert where she encounters an angel of God at a spring on the road to Shur (Sure). The angel tells her to go back to Sarah and suffer the abuse because she's going to be the mother of many descendants. What amazes Hagar most about this divine encounter is it was believed you couldn't have an audience with God and survive. She's so delighted at having survived the encounter she actually ends up naming God: “Thou art the one that sees.”

Therefore, this is yet another, one on one, divine encounter with Yahweh the God of the chosen people. Not only does Yahweh take care of Hagar but also commits to caring for Ishmael as he grows into adulthood. Neither Hagar or Ishmael are one of Yahweh's chosen people but apparently are of great importance and are being loved and cared for. How do we miss this?

Jesus certainly didn't as he goes about the countryside ministering, caring for, teaching and healing despised Samaritans, a Canaanite woman, a Roman centurion and that's just the foreign people. He also embraced women and children who were considered socially inferior to men and lepers who were seen as unclean. Jesus clearly picks up on the inclusive nature of God as depicted in the Old Testament.

The Apostle Paul paints a picture of inclusiveness frequently in his writings the most famous being the following: “In Christ's family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 3:28; The Message Bible)

We probably have a tendency to view ourselves as being reasonably inclusive having gotten in touch with any seeds of prejudice or bigotry buried within our psyche. But in all honesty such seeds are generally buried deep and it takes considerable effort to get to them and root them out. They are planted in our youth and are transferred to us through phrases like, “your an Indian giver” denoting someone who gives a gift and then later wants it back.

Other examples include “that's so gay” or referring to someone with Cerebral Palsy as being “spastic” or whenever the word “nigger” is used. Words and phrases like this were commonly used in my youth and are deeply ingrained.

This kind of social influence was formative and it takes a lifetime to become fully conscious of them and identify them as derogatory and undesirable. I'm still working at it. The work really began when I moved to the Bay Area and became exposed to a much wider variety of ethnic groups and varying ways of life rarely made available in my rural setting in Oregon.

At my ordination I asked a friend to read something I wrote for the seminary newsletter which described an experience I had riding the Bay Area Rapid Transit train which included the line: “...and a black man called me friend.” Being called “friend” by a black man struck a deep chord within me because it was said with such sincerity. Beyond that it suggested I was becoming less judgmental. It felt good to be growing out of my rural background into a more inclusive understanding of the world around me.

In the present culture we're living through it's as if we're all being given permission to be our worst selves. This is a radical change from many of the influences of our culture in the past. In my youth there were people like John Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy who were pioneers of social change and equality.

Now-a-days it seems like we're heading in the opposite direction where prejudice and bigotry are accepted and even encouraged, and it goes well beyond this. Not too long ago Elon Musk said that “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” Oddly enough, this approach seems to be working for him at least in terms of personal wealth as he's is now the world's first trillionaire. Many people today are allured by someone who can achieve this kind of excessive personal gain.

God clearly favors inclusiveness with the empathy he shows Hagar and the commitment to care for Ishmael. Jesus takes note of God's inclusive character and implements it into his own ministry and the Apostle Paul doesn't miss this. These are examples of inclusive behavior that become a model for us to follow in our individual and collective ministries.

On a final note: it's ironic that the war with Iran is being carried out against the descendants of Hagar and Ishmael. What would happen if we were to look upon these descendants in the same way God looked upon Hagar and Ishmael with both empathy and care?

Rev. Mitch Becker

June 21, 2026

Port Angeles

First Christian Church

“A Different Kettle of Fish”

Exodus 19:2-8a

In this portion of scripture there is a core message that comes through loud and clear for the people of God. What it amounts to is God didn't bring the people out of Egypt so they could do whatever they felt like doing with their freedom. He brought them out of Egypt so they could become his people by living out the covenant he gave them.

By extension the same is true for us. We've not been freed from the bondage of the ego so we can do whatever we please. We've been freed so we can better discern the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit can create a vision for us to follow. In strict religious terms you might call it a path of righteousness and an even better word for righteousness is justice.

By the same token, we've been gifted with the guidance that comes through scripture and by reciting the twenty-third psalm we see how justice can aptly replace the word righteousness:

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside the still waters, he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of justice for his names sake.”

Illustrated in the text is that the people become God's people when they make the attempt to live out the covenant God has given them. Christians also have been given a covenant to live out which is specifically referred to during the words of institution at communion. Jesus calls it the “New Covenant.”

The New Covenant has three defining features including the forgiveness of sins not through animal sacrifice but due to the ultimate sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross. It also indicates an internal transformation mentioned by Jeremiah where God promises to write his laws on the hearts of his people (Jeremiah 31:33). Also, Jesus' followers receive the Holy Spirit which empowers us to discern what early Christians would come to call The Way.

The Way brings us back to the path of justice we're to follow not for our sake but because we belong to God we want to stay as close as possible to him. Isn't that the way it is when you identify with something? You don't want to stray too far off the path because straying leaves you feeling lost and alone without purpose and ultimately unloved which is not a desirable place to be.

There is a world of difference between a covenant that's written on stone tablets and a covenant written on the human heart. The most obvious difference is one comes at you from the outside in and the other from the inside out. The covenant Jesus instills within us through a divine transformation eventually leads to no longer being predisposed to sin.

The reason for this is the divine transformation results in an internal connection with God and any behavior that might disrupt that connection is avoided. What becomes most important is to do whatever facilitates and enhances the connection including depth prayer, scripture, acts of compassion, and being in community with God's people.

Sinful acts which can also be defined as selfish acts run contrary to the Spirit that wants to flow from the inside to the outside world. In this way, selfishness interferes with the development of relationships with other people. This may lead to alienation and loneliness and can affect the persons mental and psychological health. Continued self-focus stifles the Spirit impeding spiritual growth. The following story serves as an illustration as to the affect selfish acts can have upon us:

Once, in a small village nestled between rolling hills, there lived a man named Elias. He was a gifted teacher, respected for his wisdom and kindness. For years he had led Bible studies, mentored young people, and shared God's word with humility. But deep inside, Elias harbored a quiet selfishness – a desire to be seen as the most important person in the group, to have the last word, and to be remembered above all others.

At first, his selfishness was subtle. He would volunteer to speak last a meetings, not because he had more to share, but because it gave him the last chance to impress. When others offered praise, he would smile and nod, but his heart was not truly grateful. He began to compare himself to others, measuring his worth by how much he could contribute rather than by how much he could receive from God.

One day, a young woman maned Miriam approached Elias with a question about prayer. She was thoughtful, patient, and genuinely seeking God's will. Elias, eager to be seen as wise, gave her a long complex answer, but it was more about impressing her than listening to her heart. Later, Miriam confessed that she felt misunderstood and discouraged. Elias, surprised, realized he had not truly heard her.

Over time, his selfishness grew. He stopped inviting others to lead, avoided open discussions, and began to withdraw from the group. His focus shifted from serving others to protecting his own reputation. He missed opportunities to pray with humility, to share God's love without ego, and to grow in dependence on the Holy Spirit.

One evening, as Elias sat alone in the study hall, he felt a deep emptiness. He had taught so much, yet he felt spiritually dry. He remembered a verse for Philippians 2:3: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride.” That night, he wept – not because of failure, but because he had been so focused upon himself that he had lost sight of God's purpose for his life.

Elias began to change. He started listening more than speaking, inviting others to lead, and sharing his own struggles with humility. He learned to value the fruit of the Spirit – love, kindness, and self-control – over the fruit of the flesh, which included selfish ambition – Slowly, the group grew closer, and Elias found joy not in being the center, but in being part of something greater.

At one point in the story it describes Elias as not growing further in dependence on the Holy Spirit which is a central aspect to that intimate connection with God I spoke of earlier. It becomes apparent over time that this connection is greatly enhanced by a consistent and deepening desire to rely more on the Spirit and less upon self determination.

In letting go of attempts to be in control of your life, or the life of others, the guidance of the Spirit makes itself known and accessible. Praying with humility means to sincerely seek God's presence, and by extension his guidance, because it's more trustworthy than your own limited wisdom and resources, and, quite simply, it's pleasurable. Being in God's presence is deeply restful even more so than REM sleep because it's happening at the level of your soul.

Following are the words of Jesus as translated in contemporary language: “Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” (Matthew 11:28a-29b; The Message Bible)

The covenant written on stone gave the Israelite's guidance they needed to become a people of God but such guidance from the outside has limitations. Jesus changed all of this by writing the covenant on our hearts through a divine transformation. If we'll allow the transformation to happen the covenant can continue to come forth from the inside out. It's a better way but we have to be open to it and that takes a lot of prayer, thinking and self-examination which a great many people are simply not willing to do.

Rev. Mitch Becker

June 14, 2026

Port Angeles

First Christian Church

“Fire Alarms!”

Hosea 5:15-6:6

Just a couple verses prior to our text we find described not the illness of a single person but the collective moral, political, and spiritual sickness of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Some representative or a group of representatives go to the king of Assyria for help. God through the prophet Hosea tells Ephraim (a name that represents the Northern Kingdom) that the king can't help them.

Much like normal human behavior Ephraim (F-fram) doesn't take responsibility for this collective malaise (mal-laze) but sees it as God's punishment for their lack of sincere devotion. God's not going to return to help them until they change their ways. Changing their ways begins with acknowledgment of their guilt and when they hit rock bottom maybe they'll turn to God.

Ephraim does decide to seek God for healing and refuge because though God has wounded them severely he also has the power to heal and restore. Next comes the affirmation about God's willingness to restore them completely on the third day. Though this reference to being raised on the third day is not quoted exactly as it is in Hosea the notion itself is often seen in the New Testament.

Ephraim next makes a vow to take God more seriously in the future and doubles-down on God's sure care for them emphasizing that God's love is indisputable. God's response to this leaves much to be desired as he discounts their vows saying they're like “the dew that goes away early.”

God justifies his use of prophets whose intention is to wake up these spiritually sleepy, half-hearted people. It all culminates with considerable clarity that God doesn't want more religion and rituals. What God wants is a sincere love that doesn't fade away like dew in the morning.

Ephraim needs to begin with some good, old fashion fessing up which is what God is trying to drive them to with his persecution and ill-treatment. We all need to be better in the acknowledgment of our own crimes and misdemeanors. Often we have to hit rock bottom before we give up our illusions and denial. It's never an easy process. Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor expands on this as she begins by talking about repentance:

Repentance begins with the decision to return to relationship: to accept our God-given place in community, and to choose a way of life that increases life for all members of that community. Needless to say, this often involves painful changes, which is why most of us prefer remorse to repentance. We would rather say, “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I feel, really, really awful about what I've done” than actually start doing things differently....

“All sins are attempts to fill voids,” wrote the French philosopher Simone (See-moan) Weil (Vay). Because we cannot stand the God-shaped hole inside of us, we try stuffing it full of all sorts of things, but it refuses to be filled. It rejects all substitutes....It is the holy of holies inside of us, which only God may fill....

I do not believe sin is the enemy we often make it out to be, at least not when we recognize it and name it as such. When we see how we have turned away from God, then and only then do we have what we need to begin turning back. Sin is our only hope, the fire alarm that wakes us up to the possibility of true repentance.

God is pummeling Ephraim into repentance, of course, this is hard to see as an expression of love. But as Ms. Taylor points out true repentance only comes about when we recognize our wrong-doing and take responsibility for it. She further describes the process as “involving painful changes.”

The second to last verse just before God tells them he wants their sincere love sounds like this in contemporary language: “That's why I use my prophets to shake you to attention, why my words cut you to the quick: To wake you up to my judgment blazing like light.” If we could keep our eyes on God and his “judgment blazing like light” in the first place Ephraim, and us by extension, wouldn't have to suffer so much.

In this regard, its much like golf. When I drive a golf ball off the tee it can travel a hundred sixty to a hundred seventy yards if I hit the ball squarely which in golf terms is called a “flush strike.” An interesting aspect of making a flush strike is you don't have to put in any extra effort in striking the ball. By hitting it squarely the ball and golf club do all the work and the most important component in all of this is keeping your eye on the ball.

If you raise your head too soon you often slice the ball meaning the face of the club is left open and the ball travels to the right of your target. You've got to keep your eye on the ball at the moment of impact. We run into the same sort of problems when we take our eyes off of God and try to live without the guidance of the Spirit. We're soon in deep water because the ego takes over compelling us to seek selfish desires, wants and imaginings.

If we can keep our eyes on God, then we can avoid being pummeled to the point we reach the end of our ropes and repent. Like the chorus we just sang from the hymn, “Living for Jesus:” “I own no other master, my heart shall be thy throne, my life I give, hence-forth to live, O Christ for thee alone.”

Such a committed lifestyle is not possible until we reach a state of thorough enlightenment and nearly totally free of the egos grasp. That doesn't describe too many people who are walking the face of the earth. But it is possible to sin less and enjoy the fruits of a relatively ego free life. But on this plane of existence to a certain extent, we'll probably always need to rely on some sort of hardship to drive us to repentance.

Something we're all witnessing in the culture these days are wanton actions that seemingly have no consequence. Violence being done against the innocent, political strife followed by revenge being touted and practiced openly, arrogance resulting in anger being exercised without restraint nor followed with any degree of remorse. I've never seen anything like it in my life and I've been around for awhile as you have been. What are we to make of this?

Though we didn't cover all the verses that precede our text what they're about is the source of the Northern Kingdoms misbehavior. The prophet is condemning them for slaughtering their own people specifically at sacrificial sites. There was also political strife and revenge being practiced, and an alliance was formed with Syria to violently attack the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Arrogance in their own imagined independent abilities rather than seeking God's guidance and support is seen as the ultimate source for their misbehavior.

This all results in Ephraim being brought to the end of their rope by the pummeling of God as described in contemporary language: “I'm a grizzly charging Ephraim, a grizzly with cubs charging Judah. I'll rip them to pieces – yes, I will! No one can stop me now; I'll drag them off. No one can help them.”

For Ephraim (as well as the Southern Kingdom of Judah) God made them accountable for their misbehavior to the point they finally decided to take God seriously and reinstated their faith. It was a painful process and it is for us as well because we can't separate ourselves from our culture. This is our home but as people of faith we have something many others don't which is the power that comes with knowing. We know that God is ultimately in charge.

Rev. Mitch Becker

June 7, 2026

Port Angeles

First Christian Church

“Freedom Isn't Free”

1 Samuel 2:1-10

This morning we begin at the beginning of the monarchy in Israel incorporating both humility and despair. Hannah is married and without child which would leave her carrying something of a social stigma. This is very unlike today where raising a child can cost upwards of a couple hundred thousand dollars, but in ancient Israel children were seen as financial assets.

Beyond this they could provide physical labor from an early age and they guaranteed a continuance of the family name and any property that was owned. Children represented both hope and continued vitality for the future of the family. Considering these factors it's easy to understand Hannah's despair not to mention she had to share her husband with another woman!

Hannah's sadness was deep and protracted, so much so that her husband tried to console her with double portions of food all the while expressing disillusionment with questions like, “why are you crying” and “why don't you eat” and “why are you so sad” and finally pleading in desperation with a patriarchal flare saying, “Aren't I better than ten sons?” These disappointing responses only made things worse as she continues to weep.

As Eugene Peterson interprets the first Beatitude: “You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” (Matthew 5:3; The Message Bible) Hannah, at the end of her rope, prays to God asking God to look upon her distress and bless her with a male child. If God will fulfill her request she'll offer him as a nazirite or as one dedicated to the Lord.

While she's praying in the temple Eli the priest accuses her of being drunk and scornfully reproaches her but after she pleads her innocence he blesses her. His blessing coupled with her sincere prayer must have been influential in heaven because the “Lord remembered her” and she receives a son! Hannah does not disappoint and offers him in committed service to the Lord.

Our text centers around Hannah's Song which surprisingly has nothing to do with the miraculous birthing of her son but is totally focused upon God's grace and dominion: “There is no Holy One like the Lord, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God”

Hannah's Song will become inspiration for generations that follow demonstrating that God can turn barrenness into fruitfulness, transform despair into hopefulness, and change any bitterness about past events into joyful anticipation of the future. Hannah reminds us that God is the sole source of our salvation!

There are problems that have easy solutions. We only had one key for the small room in the barn that contains the lawn mower. Whenever someone needs the lawn mower they have to come to me for the key. So, I stopped at Swain's and had one made and now at least Roger has a key. Oreo has mostly stopped eating her breakfast at home. So, I put her food in a sandwich bag and empty it into a paper bowl in the office where she eats it at her convenience. These are problems with easy solutions.

Hannah's problem is of an entirely different nature. Her womb is barren and in ancient Israel that's a problem with multiple consequences including being shamed, possibly facing divorce (though Elkanah seems committed to the marriage), it created financial hardship, possible social isolation in old age, and feelings of abandonment by God. Hannah's distress becomes perfectly understandable when facing these possibilities.

But it's that very distress that becomes the first factor in what appears to influence God's intervention with the ultimate solution being fertility. Something else that seemed to be influential was her vow to commit her son to serve the Lord as a nazarite or one who has taken strict religious vows. The other seemingly important factor was Eli's blessing even though at first he was reluctant to help her.

What the story doesn't mention, however, is that the really difficult problems often require the courage to change. This means initially something has to be let go of so it can be replaced with something better. Marcus is the incarcerated friend of ours that Karen first encountered at the church in Lancaster, CA.. Marcus has been in jail for around forty years and he never stops talking about the possibility of being granted his freedom.

But if you were incarcerated as a youth and the only adult lifestyle you're familiar with is prison life how well are you going to be prepared to cope with life on the outside? Marcus has a roof over his head, a bed to sleep in, and food to eat all of which is provided by the state. As far as I know he has no income, therefore, the IRS doesn't care about him. You get the idea...much of what we have to deal with here on the outside doesn't even apply to him.

Upon release Marcus will have to find employment (with a criminal record), stable housing, means of transportation, and all of this coping with the social stigma of being an ex-con.

He'll even need a crash course on how to work with the new technologies like smart phones and the internet. He may be on parole meaning he has to follow strict rules and he'll need to take care of both his physical and mental health. In a word, he'll need to reinvent himself in order to cope with life on the outside and that'll take courage along with a willingness to let go of what doesn't work anymore.

Now for the shocking news: Most of humanity is living within the prison of the ego which means trying to function with dualistic thinking. Lets let Father Rohr jump in here:

Liberation from the ego self is liberation from the world of forms and images. Jesus's word for that was “mammon.” “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). If we're playing the game of appearance and power, prestige, and possessions, Jesus says we cannot know God. That's pretty absolute! There's a correlation between our preoccupation with image and how much – or how little – we've experienced the inner life.

Jesus also liberates us from the ego self with constant warnings against negativity and oppositional thinking. In general, his word for that liberation is “forgiveness.” Two thirds of Jesus's teaching is directly or indirectly about forgiveness. To live oppositionally is to be holding some degree of resentment or unhealed negative energy that we have not brought to the divine presence for transformation.

What he's calling “oppositional thinking” I called dualistic thinking and it's how the human mind works before enlightenment. Oppositional thinking means to see the world in terms of us verses them or right verses wrong. It creates rigid categories that results in judgmental thoughts and is the source of much of the hatred and bigotry we're experiencing these days.

Forgiveness dissolves these rigid boundaries and aligns us with a non-dual state of wholeness, compassion, and a sense of being interconnected with all that exists. Forgiveness requires tremendous courage because it changes us at a core level. The old way of thinking ends and is so much a part of who we are that it culminates in a feeling of death and dying.

This is the cost of liberation and we're only going to pay that kind of price when we feel that God loves us and are in his grace. We have to be assured that God is going to be there to catch us when we fall. It is experience with the inner life that will convince us, in time, that God will be there to break the fall.

Rev. Mitch Becker

May 31, 2026

Port Angeles 

First Christian Church

“A Deluge of Wallabies”

Acts 2:1-21

At the heart of the narrative about the Holy Spirit coming down upon the apostles is the wonderment of the people listening to them. In all there were 120 other disciples who were present but in addition to these were thousands of devout Jews from many countries. All these people were in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost.

The narrative describes fascination to the point of bewilderment of these others who couldn't understand how they were hearing the apostles in their own language. There are sixteen countries represented with an unspecified number of people belonging to their own respective country.

On Tuesday evening following the graveside service for Celia we entertained her son Mark, his wife Donna, and daughter Brittany over dinner at our house. The meal was not elaborate consisting of hot dogs, baked beans and potato salad plus dessert, and it's always interesting to be with people you don't know very well in such a setting.

We had a good time, and as usual Karen did most of the organization and preparation, but it was something Mark said before he was even in the house that struck me. After trying to convey something to his wife and failing he turned to me and said something to the effect of: “There are few things more difficult than human conversation.” And I immediately knew what he was talking about being someone who communicates for a living.

Perhaps that's why the comment was directed toward me, I don't know, but after they left, I had to ponder his statement and subsequently it caused me to recognize its relevance to our text. There are about ten verses right at the core devoted to the communication of “the mighty works of God.”

To emphasize how communication can affect the course of our lives I can contribute my early exit from my first pastorate in Bakersfield to the manner I chose to communicate with the congregation. I was fresh out of seminary and all fired up about my new role as a leader (associate pastor) in a pretty good sized congregation by Disciples of Christ standards. Around two hundred people came to church on any given Sunday.

I remember the pulpit was so tall I had to stand on a wooden box to be seen, but I made up for my stature with the power of my preaching. I identified as a progressive Christian and with little alteration considering the conservative nature of the congregation preached what was on my mind and heart.

I think they tried to give me the benefit of the doubt, but when I theologically challenged the pastor's wife in Sunday School that proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back! They had a very nice going away party for me around Christmastime.

The following comes from a commentary written by Rebecca Dean:

In attempting to describe the events of the first Christian Pentecost to the people of Pukatja (Poo-cut-ja), Central Australia, missionary Ron Trudinger (True-ding-er) once mistakenly referred to the Holy Spirit coming through a “deluge of wallabies” rather than through the tongues of fire of the Acts account. This makes for an amusing anecdote, of course, yet it also captures some of the key issues that emerge from the biblical passage itself: the bridges and barriers formed by human languages, and the wider sense-making challenge posed by Luke's extraordinary account of the outpouring of the Spirit. As modern interpreters of the text, we can find ourselves asking, along with the crowd of witnesses, “What does this mean?”

Peter tries to explain to everyone what is happening by quoting the prophet Joel saying the Spirit will be poured out in the last days. The “last days” is a reference to the time between Jesus' first coming to earth and his second coming or return to earth. In these last days prior to Jesus's return their will be a pouring out of the Spirit causing sons and daughters to become prophets, young men to see visions, and old men to have dreams.

There will also be cataclysmic events occurring in the heavens with the sun going dark and the moon turning blood red. All of this is reminiscent of descriptions of events recorded in the Book of Revelation; but in truth the sun does go dark during a total solar eclipse and the moon turns red during a total lunar eclipse, hence the name “Blood Moon.” And people have always prophesied and have had visions and dreamed dreams.

What I'm getting at is something that Thich Nhat Hanh (Tic-Not-Hon) suggested in a recent meditation on my daily devotional calendar. He suggested that we write the words “Are you sure” on a large piece of paper and post it somewhere you'll frequently see it. It's an interesting suggestion and if followed causes one to bring into question anything and everything you might feel assured of. In other words, it veers one in the direction of humility.

With this in mind how do we know that Jesus hasn't already returned. With that thought I want to share with you what amounts to the closing thoughts in Marcus Borg's first best-selling book, “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.” In it he begins with the phrase “believing in Jesus:”

He explains that during his childhood that phrase meant believing things about Jesus. It meant that you believed in what you read in the Bible and what was conveyed to you in church. He says it was easy to do this as a child but as he grew older it became increasingly difficult to except all that he'd learned and previously took for granted.

But now as an adult he sees that believing in Jesus means something quite different. You only need to consider the root meaning of the word “believe.” Taken from either the Greek or Latin the word “believe” actually means: “to give one's heart to.” The “heart” in this case (as well as its frequent meaning in the Bible) represents the self at its deepest level.

Therefore, “believing” doesn't mean some kind of intellectual assent to something like I “believe” Jesus was resurrected after the third day or I “believe” Jesus changed water to wine. What “believe” means is to give your heart or to give of yourself at it's deepest level.

We're to give our hearts to the post-Easter Jesus or the Jesus that still exists after his death. Not the man who once walked on the earth teaching and healing, but to the Lord who is also the Spirit. The same Spirit that Paul encountered on the road to Damascus. The Spirit that changed him at a soul level from the chief persecutor of the early church to its greatest propagator.

Marcus further explains that what happened to Paul, and what God wants to have happen for each of us, is to make the movement from secondhand religion to firsthand religion. That means from believing in things that we've heard about Jesus to being in an intimate relationship with the Spirit of Christ. This is what changes Jesus from being a figure of the past into a figure of the present. He ends the book with this line: “Meeting that Jesus – the living Jesus who comes to us even now – will be like meeting Jesus again for the first time.”

In this regard, we can say that Jesus has already returned or even that Jesus is always in the process of returning because he comes forth within each of us who invite him to do so. The Apostle Paul beautifully summarizes this in the letter to the Corinthians when he says: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 3:18)

Rev. Mitch Becker

May24, 2026

Port Angeles

Pentecost Day