Sunday Sermon -The Rev. Joshua Daniel, P.H. D. (Sep 6, 2026)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: The Holy Gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ according to Matthew. [00:00:05] Speaker B: Glory to you, oh God. [00:00:09] Speaker A: Jesus said, if another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again. True. Truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord. [00:01:54] Speaker B: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and Redeemer. Amen. On July 31, all six of my family members, two adults, three children, one dog, loaded into our car, a 2019 Honda Odyssey, and headed out for a journey that would take us more than 3,000 miles across the middle of America. We spent a week in South Haven, Michigan, where the high never went above 75 degrees. Quite nice. The week after that, also nice, was in Bentonville, Arkansas, where the low was never below 95 degrees. There are only 4070 millimeter IMAXes in the world. And when we crossed paths with one of them in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Jude, my 16 year old and I slipped away and watched Christopher Nolan's version of the Odyssey. The Odyssey, an ancient story, centered around ancient themes. First and foremost, the journey home, but also swirling there. There are connections we might make with our own holy text. The dual image of table fellowship and hospitality and sacrifice and forgiveness. That each of these may be offered in acts of charity and friendship, but also that these points of human and divine connection can be manipulated into acts of control and cruelty. Sometimes the simplest desire, the urge to need to reunite with friends and family in the confines and familiarity and safety of one's home. That simplest desire can sometimes be paired with the strange and mischievous fact that sometimes the world conspires to make straightforward requests like I just want to be home, want to sleep in my own bed and drink my own coffee. Sometimes the world can rise up and shake and Send everything we planned over the edge. 3,000 miles we were on the road. Just 12 of them took us through unusually constrictive highway construction. The far end of eastern Tennessee, on the banks of the Pigeon River, Just in that stretch of Road that two years ago, Hurricane Helene reached more than 300 miles inland from the Atlantic and swept away a large part of Interstate 40. Just in that stretch where the road narrows down to one lane of traffic. Just in that stretch where that one lane narrows even further so that there's no shoulder, not even three extra feet on either side. Just in that stretch, our 2019 Honda Odyssey broke down. And with that, all eastbound traffic on I40 came to a standstill. The sick souls aboard that car were immediately transferred again and again and again into the hands of many, many kind strangers. We found ourselves towed into the far back hills of Appalachian Tennessee. Found ourselves there without any clear path to get the large number of us together, without separating, to the nearest town that could fix our car eventually. Just before dusk, just before the storm that had been brewing on the horizon broke, I got a cell signal and connected with a local man who had spent much of his day ferrying people around those back hills. Not an Uber, not in the yellow pages, just a number on a bulletin is what I called. His name was Rob, and we crammed into his car. He told us that he was originally from Baltimore, that he'd never intended to move to his now longtime home. He said simply, I had only intended to visit this place, but after 40 years ago of being here, I guess now I'm home. Later that night, all of us in the single room in the hotel that would be our home for who knows how long. Jenna asked Rosie, our seven year old, what she was thinking when our car broke down. Rosie said, well, I know that Dakota, our family dog, was really, really scared. Yeah, Jenna said, I bet he was. But Rosie, were you scared? Was I scared, Mama? I was shaking in my bones, she said. Four days later, we received our car back fully restored. But then, just one hour later, our car was dead again. And as we sat there in the sweltering heat again in a car that would not move, I thought back to our driver, the man who said he realized that this was his new home when he hadn't left in 40 years. And I thought, oh, no, it's happening to us. Will we ever get out of here? Our scriptures today are full of suggestions for how to resolve high conflict. Do not steal, do not covet, Paul tells us, put the love of neighbor in the center of who you are for Jesus. If you are wronged and it can't be set right privately, then turn to the fellowship and community around you. Jesus says, so powerful is that witness that if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For the Hebrews who had been enslaved in Egypt for more than 400 years, their release demanded a total sacrifice, a blood offering, something unimaginable to us. Now all of this nudges us to ask one of the most fundamental questions. When relationships have broken down, when our way home, when peace between us seems impossibly distant, how do we set things right? Ancient wisdom is to offer a sacrifice. And though this at first blush can seem quite foreign, so many of the sacrifices we see in the ancient world were not much more than the ritualistic setting aside of food. Most often food offered as a kind of table fellowship with the divine. Sacrifice is often literally an invitation to use grain and meat and wine as a way of healing and resetting what is broken and askew into something new and restored between our frayed human alliances, between us and creation, between us and the holy, mysterious God that is beyond. Here, the pain is not forgotten, but reimagined into a narrative of forgiveness and restoration. If I could offer a humble contrast between Homer's epic between the warring tribes and the cycle of abuse and manipulation and violence. A cycle, it's true, we sometimes see, even in our own scriptures, a humble contrast between that the kind of sacrifice that Jesus now asks of us. Jesus invites us to live in a world where when things are broken and frayed, we no longer demand that they be repaid with blood. That if my eye is taken, I no longer immediately think in terms of. Of repayment in kind. To see this new world, we must see Jesus as a different kind of God. Most gods are spruced up, used car salesmen trying to get us to buy something that ultimately isn't in our best interest. A fancy kind of manipulation that invites worship as a kind of self glorification or puffing up. Those gods use our sacrifice to enhance their own position and power. But the new kingdom of God is beyond that. Look at the life of Jesus, for all his position and power, for all that was owed to him. He takes all of that and spends his life serving others. And Jesus, new kingdom sacrifice can only be used for love. We can ask for it and we can offer it only in these terms. Love is the fulfillment of the law. And look, 6,000 years later, we still gather around a table of of bread and wine set aside for a ritualistic encounter in search of God's healing and restoration. And this place, this church, only works when it works by the power of God's love. This, this is our true home. The odyssey of our souls is this journey towards God. A journey in which we must learn a thousand different times that when we mess up, we've got to ask for forgiveness. And when we have been wronged by others, if we hope to enter into God's new kingdom, we, we must be willing to grant forgiveness. Not repayment in blood, but full, total forgiveness in God's mercy. You are loved by God, seen by God, forgiven by God. And when you are in God, that means you accept and receive and give that love to others. And it was in the power of that love that just two weeks ago, I stood before the Honda servicemen in Morristown, Tennessee, sea and begged them, guys, right now I'm pleading with you as a father, trying to get my family home. We have got to get home today. And I'd like to think that what happened thereafter was a divine encounter. We did get home that day, though not in our van. Those guys sacrificed a lot for us. They found us a car to loan and got us home. In this season of life, with so much new and changing and swirling around us, Jesus offers us this sacrifice to live our lives for others, to carry God, our home, within us. Amen.