“But here is the Good News, People of God: even as we live through this present moment in which kids are hungry, people lack healthcare, the stranger is maligned and the earth is harmed, our sacred text tells us exactly what we are to do: Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God.”

Scripture & Sermon at Messiah Lutheran Church

July 6, 2025

FIRST READING - 1 John 4:7-8
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

GOSPEL - Luke 10:1-11
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’

Sunday, July 6, 2025 Service Bulletin

SERMON - Rev. Dr. Mandy Todd

This week, we are diving into the second chapter of Amanda Tyler’s How to End Christian Nationalism. This chapter is entitled, “Ground Yourself in God’s Love.” In the first chapter, which we studied last week, we heard Tyler’s definition of Christian Nationalism: “a political ideology and cultural framework that seeks to fuse American and Christian identities. It suggests that “real” Americans are Christians and that “true” Christians hold a particular set of political beliefs. It seeks to create a society in which only this narrow subset of Americans is privileged by law and in societal practice.” Tyler asserts that the first step to ending Christian Nationalism is to name and understand it and the threat that it poses. I think it’s pretty smart to start with the definition of the thing, just so we’re all on the same page. 

But then, the very next step, Tyler says, is to ground ourselves in God’s love, recognizing that this work of rooting out Christian Nationalism in our society and in ourselves is difficult, and so we must return to and re-focus on the very center of our Christian identity–the love of God in our lives, the love of God that is the kingdom of God. 

As I mentioned last week, each chapter of Tyler’s book has a scripture for us to focus on, and those are the texts that we’re using as our preaching texts each week of our sermon series. This week, the preaching text is not the Gospel, but this short passage from the first letter from John that Gavin read. The Gospel text and the Psalm this morning come from the lectionary. 

Ask me what my favorite scripture is, and I’ll tell you 1 John 4:7-21. This is the text I used for my ordination into ministry. If I had to boil my theology into one sentence, it would be this, “God is love. God loves us, and we are called to show God to the world by loving.”

According to biblical scholar Sherri Brown, the three letters known as first, second and third John were written around 100 CE, “in a community of churches that now finds it necessary to define itself against turmoil from within. Christian ideals are proving difficult to live out in the larger Greco-Roman world…[and so] the author seeks to stem the tide of discord and dissolution and strengthen and unify his communities.”

Honestly, it seems like that’s where we are today. It seems to me, and to Amanda Tyler, and maybe to you, that it is proving difficult to live out our Christian ideals in the larger world. Here in the US in 2025, this is difficult because there are really two competing views of what it means to be a Christian in today’s society. One view conflates being an American with being Christian, promotes an individualistic, “America First” mentality, and focuses more on converting folks to fall in line than it does to loving as God does. According to this view, “America was, is, and always will be a Christian nation…and many are willing to use their guns to enforce or defend that idea.”

The other view centers the love of God. The other view, according to Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, stands “in solidarity with the people who Jesus stood in solidarity with: the outsiders, the disenfranchised, the tax collectors, the women, the sinners.” That’s a view that centers the love of God. 

It’s a view that is fully embraced in our Gospel text today. Here, Jesus is sending the disciples - not just the 12, but a whole host of disciples - out to start spreading the message of God’s peace, God’s love. And Jesus encourages these disciples to take nothing with them, but to depend on and accept God’s love even as they spread that message. These disciples aren’t forcing anyone to believe or do anything. They don’t bring their metaphorical guns any more than they bring their purse or bag or sandals. All they bring is the love of God, and they trust that God’s love will speak for itself. 

These two competing views of Christianity are set before us today. 

On Thursday, the US Congress passed, and Friday, President Trump signed into law, a budget bill that, according to Elizabeth Eaton, Presiding Bishop of the ELCA: 

• Abandons our commitments to people who are sick or who live with financial hardship. More than 17 million people could lose health coverage over the coming years, and 22.3 million U.S. families will lose some or all of their SNAP benefits. These cuts will make our nation sicker and more hungry, disproportionately impacting rural communities by putting hospitals and other community health providers at long-term risk of closure. 

• Threatens family and community stability. This bill abandons compassion by more than tripling federal spending on deportation and detention and by adding over $170 billion for immigration and border enforcement. This goes far beyond the reasonable goal of ensuring a safe and orderly border and risks tearing apart millions of families, communities and churches.

• Harms future generations. This bill compromises our children’s futures by recklessly increasing the national debt and exposing our next generations to dirtier air and a hotter climate.

If this were a nation that truly aligned with the values of Jesus, what kind of budget might we adopt? One that recognizes that God is love, and puts into practice the scriptural imperative that we must love one another? Or one that claims that some are privileged and protected, and others are unworthy? 

I saw a meme on social media this week that said: “If you wanna bring prayer in school but not free lunch, you gotta stop pretending this is about Jesus - he would've fed the kids.” That’s it, folks. Jesus feeds the kids. Jesus heals the sick. Jesus welcomes the stranger. Jesus cares for the earth. 

In our country today, there is a narrative that being a Christian means you are privileged and exceptional. That being a Christian means you can do whatever you want, with no consequences, because you are blessed by God. My friends, that is a false interpretation of Christianity, and we must reclaim the truth of our faith. 

But here is the Good News, People of God: even as we live through this present moment in which kids are hungry, people lack healthcare, the stranger is maligned and the earth is harmed, our sacred text tells us exactly what we are to do: Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God. 

Walter Brueggemann puts it like this, “What’s going on in US politics–it is essentially a politics of despair, in which we believe that nothing radically good can happen, and therefore it is a scramble to get as many of the marbles in our pocket before the game ends. But that’s a no-win strategy because in the long run, it diminishes everyone’s life.”

But Jesus won’t let us sit in this politics of despair. Jesus sends us out to every town and place to share this message of God’s love. Sent out, we are the hands and feet of Jesus in the world today. Jesus feeds the kids. Jesus heals the sick. Jesus welcomes the stranger. Jesus cares for the earth. Beloved, this is love. So let’s ground ourselves in God’s love and keep going. Amen. 

https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-1-john-316-24-5
Tyler, 60.
Tyler, 61.
https://www.elca.org/news-and-events/bishop-eaton-statement-on-obbbas-passage
Tyler, 68-69.