In 1985 singer, songwriter and harmonica player Huey Lewis wrote a new song for his band, Huey Lewis and the News. The song was in the film Back to the Future, becoming a hit for the band. If you saw the movie or listened to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 on the radio that year you’ve heard the tune.

Anyone remember the name of the song?

The Power of Love.

The lyrics are catchy, and memorable.

The power of love,
Is a curious thing,
Makes one man weep,
Makes another sing,
Changes a hawk,
To a little white dove
More than a feeling,
That’s the power of love.

Then
Today’s text from John 8:31-36 is also about power.

In it we find Jesus speaking with a group of Judeans. Judeans were from the kingdom of Judea, which is now southern Israel. The people’s identity was very much based on where they lived. They were proud of where they were from.

The people Christ spoke with believed in him. But something must have happened. Because this same group of people were now at odds with Jesus. Some were even set on killing him.

Amid this backdrop Christ began to teach. Continue in my word, he shared with the crowd. From that word you will know the truth. This truth will make you free.

Free? The people could hardly believe their ears. We’ve never been slaves to anyone, they replied. What do you mean? Their power was wrapped up in a certain geography, Judea. And because of that, in their minds, they were free.

And yet, even at a surface level, something was off. Important moments in their collective history had been forgotten. By then the people Jesus spoke with had:

• Escaped from Egyptian entrapment
• Been deported to Babylon for 70 years
• Currently lived under the reality of Roman colonization.

‘Never slaves to anyone?’ Jesus might have wondered. Really?

Seeking to connect concepts, Christ continues. Sin, aka that which goes against the divine will of our creator, enslaves us. We are captive to it. The audience, deeply devout Jews, knew what Jesus referred to here well.

Much of it could be found in the Ten Commandments, what with their imperatives to not kill, steal, commit adultery, lie.

It was these actions, Jesus explained, that enslave us. Slaves have little agency, few options, no direct power of their own. On the other hand Jesus had the power to forgive, to reconcile relationships, to show them the way. And he did all this out of pure love for God’s people.

I am the truth, Christ says.
Follow me and be free.

Now
Earlier this month the ELCA Council of Bishops published an open letter emphasizing “the need to speak the truth.”

The letter begins in the beginning, in the garden of Eden. It is there where deception and lies led to the fall of humanity.

The letter names that we are a people who know and proclaim the power of Christ, God in the flesh, who said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

It states that we know the power of truth is greater than the power of deceit.

The letter condemns, with one voice, the hateful, deceptive, violent speech that has too readily found a place in our national discourse.

It implores members of our denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, using scripture, to do many things, including:

• Pledging to be vigilant guardians of the truth
• Committing to rigorous fact-checking
• Boldly advocating for the marginalized and oppressed
• Courageously interrupting hate speech
• Amplifying voices of truth.

The timely letter concludes by encouraging us to resist deception, reminding us that all members of humanity are created in the image of God.

Apply
Similar to the Judeans of Biblical times, as Americans our identity is also very much tied to where we live.  Continue in my word, Christ tells us. From that word you will know the truth. This truth will make you free.

Hearing this might make you squirm a bit. Free? We’re Americans, we may respond. This is the land of the free! Perhaps we see our power wrapped up in a flag. And because of that, in our minds, we are free.

And yet, if we take a look at our collective history we notice that –

• Slavery in the US was not so long ago
• Hard earned gains in the Civil Rights era have begun to erode
• Women’s rights continue to be challenged in ways old and new
• Our longstanding welcome to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers is shifting radically from what it once was.

Freedom is here, yes. But it’s worth asking: freedom for who?

To quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, no one is free until we all are free.

As Christians the Greatest Commandment serves as the guardrails for our faith.

Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Like us, our neighbor, no matter who they are, was created in the image of God. If we treat them as anything less than that we have become shackled to sin.

Fortunately Jesus has the power to forgive, to reconcile relationships, to show us the way. And he did all this out of pure love for each of us.

I am the truth, Christ claims.
Follow me and be free.

Today
I’d suggest that, as Americans, far too often we set our sights on worldly gain.

Because of this, basic norms of our shared humanity are increasingly coming under attack in very public, significant ways. Beloved, please know:

Sexual assault is not ok. Never was. Never will be.

Demonizing people because of their gender, race, ethnicity, orientation, land of origin, political party, or anything else is not of God.

Telling countless lies in the face of fact-checking that sets the record straight is more than deceitful. It causes harm to those we lie about.

None of this is Christian.
All of this enslaves us to sin.

Reform
Today we celebrate the Protestant Reformation. With roots in Germany over 500 years ago, the Reformation represented an important pivot for all of Christianity. At the time you could pay the Catholic church to ensure your loved ones went to heaven. The system, as Martin Luther named, was not scriptural, did not adhere to traditional Christian understandings, and was, in a word, corrupt.

Instead, Luther furthered a new theological doctrine, justification by faith alone. That is to say there is nothing you can do to earn your salvation. It is freely given to you in the waters of your baptism. By faith alone salvation is yours.

Celebrating Reformation each October also serves as a reminder: Christ continues to encourage us to follow the winds of the Spirit in new ways. The need to re-form ourselves so that God’s will be done on earth, as it is in heaven, is ever constant. We are called to keep learning, keep questioning, keep growing into our faith in thought, word and deed.

Right after service I invite you to head over to Neumann Hall for a talk on Christian Nationalism by Connie Ryan, the Executive Director of the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa. Connie will describe what Christian Nationalism is, why we should be concerned about it, and how it leads us, both as Christians and Americans, astray.

For too long we’ve been humming along to the wrong song. Do you know the name of it?

The Love of Power. It’s been a top hit here in America for a while. It makes the rich richer, the poor poorer, and marginalizes all sorts of groups.

Like Huey Lewis, we too need to write a new song.

Beloved, please know this. Christ is the way, the truth and the life. To follow Christ is to be truly free. No earthly power will do.

That’s the power of love.

On Wednesday September 4, 2024, a 14-year-old student at Apalachee High in Winder, Ga, entered his school with a rifle. Around 10am he began firing at fellow students and teachers. Minutes later four people were dead, nine were injured.

Some students during the shooting huddled quietly in their classrooms for more than an hour. Many left their phones behind when they eventually evacuated. This made it difficult to connect with anxious family members.

Traffic snarled around the school as parents scrambled to find their kids.

Back home, my wife and I received emails and texts from our children’s schools naming the incident. Naming what each school is doing to try and keep our kids safe.

Just as they do every time a mass school shooting happens in the US.

Here we go again.

This latest US mass school shooting joins many others before it in recent history, including:

• Uvalde Texas Elementary in 2022 (22 killed, 18 injured)
• Parkland Florida High School in 2018 (17 killed, 17 injured)
• Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 (28 killed, 2 injured)
• Virginia Tech in 2007 (33 killed, 17 injured)
• Columbine Colorado High School in 1999 (15 killed, 21 injured)

The shooting on January 4 of this year, at Perry High School, a mere 40 minutes from downtown Des Moines, is still fresh on our minds. That day a seventeen-year-old killed two people, including a 6th grader and the principal, injured another six, and then turned the gun on himself.

The student accused of this latest mass shooting in Georgia, Colt Gray, used a black AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle. As best we know, the gun was purchased legally by his father. According to three different law enforcement officials the weapon used was given by the father, to the son, as a Christmas gift, in December of 2023.

Think about that. Christmas.

The day we Christians celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace. Is the day this gift, of a semiautomatic rifle, to a minor, was given and received.

Text
Today I’d like to reflect on the text from James 2.

Consider two people who walk in the same room, James says.

One is blinged out with gold and fine threads.
The other is poor. What they wear is worthless.

If you treat those two people differently, saying “have a seat here please,” to the person with, and “stand over there,” to the person without, you have placed –

higher value on the wealthy, and
lower value on the poor.

It is this two class system Rosa Parks rebelled against when she boarded a public bus in Montgomery Alabama in 1955, refusing to move from her seat.

Consider two people who walk on the same bus.

One is white.
The other black.

If you treat those two people differently, saying “have a seat up front,” to one while saying “your place is in the back” to the other, you have done something.

You have placed –
higher value on light skin, and
lower value on dark skin.

It took boycotts, marches, and ultimately new laws borne of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to correct this injustice. It took changes to US law for this discriminatory practice to go away.

James chapter 2 uses slightly different language.

When you treat two people differently, based on anything, scripture says:

It is favoritism.
It is partiality.
It is, in a word, sin.

When you do this, verse 4 says, we become judges with evil thoughts.

Ouch.

The reason showing favoritism runs counter to what we are called to as Christ followers is simple. Showing favoritism makes it difficult to live into the Greatest Commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.

For when we care for some of our neighbors, at the expense of others, it separates us from each other. And it separates us from our God.

Next
Consider two other people who walk on the same bus.

One owns a semiautomatic rifle.
The other is one of our children, just trying to get to school.

If you treat those two people differently, saying “have a seat up front,” to the semiautomatic rifle owner, and “your place is in the back” to the child, you have done something.

You have prioritized a hobby over the safety of our kids.

Our shared Christian faith is clear: this mindset is not of God.

And it’s been this way for 2,000 years.

That’s great Pastor, you might find yourself thinking, but what can I do?

Beloved, I’ve got good news:

• 68% of Americans self-identify as Christians
• 66% of US adults favor banning high-capacity ammo magazines
• 64% of US adults favor banning assault style weapons entirely

Said differently, two out of three, on each of these, represents the possibility of very real change.

To date we have let our politicians be co-opted by gun lobbyists for their own financial gain.

But we don’t have to.

We can support common sense gun reforms consistent with the tenants of our shared Christian faith.

Just like we did to secure Civil Rights –

We too can boycott.
We too can march.
We too can vote.

November 6 is less than two months away.

Forget about thoughts and prayers.
For faith without works is dead.

This is the time to speak out.
This is the time to act.

It will take change, to US law, to address the tragedy of mass school shootings.
For all children of God, who are also our children, deserve more.  Amen.

To you I lift up my eyes,
    O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
As the eyes of servants
    look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
    to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
    until he has mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,
    for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than its fill
    of the scorn of those who are at ease,
    of the contempt of the proud.

So goes Psalm 123.

The prayer is –
Simple,
Direct,
Trusting,
Confident.

It is a Song of Ascents. Said differently: it looks up. Originally voiced while on pilgrimage, the people traveled, from lands near and far, to Jerusalem for a religious festival. They sang their hoped-for fortunes as they went. It is a prayer in motion.

It is sung in community, on a journey to the divine.
It is sung outdoors, under the sun, the moon, the stars.

The song begins.

I lift my eyes to you,
Who are enthroned above.

Servants rely on those they serve.
Maids rely on who owns what they clean.
So too their eyes look to the Lord their God.

The people pray for care.

Have mercy upon us, they petition,
Have mercy upon us, O Lord.
Have mercy upon us!

They request mercy –
Not once,
Or twice,
But thrice.

Mercy is to –
Show unconditional regard;
Offer love that is complete;
Give oneself to the wellbeing of another soul.

It is to do so without prerequisite.

Mercy is needed because the community the Psalmist speaks for is being treated with contempt.

Contempt is to –
Despise;
Mock;
Scorn.

It is to treat someone as less than you.

When it comes to the contempt they have suffered, the Psalmist says they have had enough. Enough of what? The Psalmist continues: these pilgrimage people are being scorned by those who are at ease.

Esteemed theologian Walter Brueggemann notes this same phrase, those who are at ease, is also found in Amos 6:1. There the phrase is a reference to affluence, those with financial means. The affluent, says Amos, are often –

Arrogant,
Self-indulgent,
Indifferent to those with less.

Those who are at ease often struggle with how to treat people who depend on someone else’s thumbs up, or thumbs down, to simply survive.

Yet ours is a God who hears the cry of the desperate. This is the crux of Psalm 123.

Reflecting on this text, I can’t help but be reminded of our unhoused friends here in Des Moines.

They too travel from lands near and far.
They too voice hoped-for fortunes.
Theirs too is a prayer in motion.

All done under the sun, the moon, the stars.

Their Song of Ascents, from people with so little, in need of so much, might go something like this:

A Psalm of the unhoused.

To you I lift up my eyes,
    Creator of all that is.
As the eyes of an employee
    look to their manager,
as the eyes of a patient
    to their surgeon,
so the eyes of the unhoused
    look to the Lord our God,
    until you have mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us,
    the unhoused, Lord,
    have mercy upon us!
For we have had more
    than enough of contempt.
We are scorned by people of means.
    Swept from public lands,
    businesses, non-profits,
    communities of faith.
All on land you, O Lord, created,
    and claim as your own.

Our bodies deteriorate,
    our mental state is weak,
    our social connections few.
Our emotional and spiritual needs? Ha!
    We struggle to be seen as even human;
    often we struggle to even be seen.

Then, in the distance, a sign,
    on the building,
    at the corner,
    of Watson Powell and 6th.
    ALL ARE WELCOME it boldly states.
Then, on that same building,
    another, in letters many feet tall:
    IN THE CITY FOR GOOD.

What does this mean?
    Might it include we, the unhoused?
    Might this place show your mercy, O Lord?
    Might here be a source of nourishment,
    emotional, spiritual care?
Or will we be placed in contempt,
    as elsewhere we so often are?

To you, we lift up our eyes,
    Creator of all that is.