Sermon | The Rev. Peter Sipple | October 25, 2026
SERMON – Trinity N.H. – Proper 25 (10/25/26)
It seems harder with each passing day not to get discouraged about the condition of the world. You’re probably finding that to be true as well. Despite advances that could be improving human lives, folks in too many parts of the world are having such a terrible time getting along. New-fangled weapons are killing thousands, most of whom are non-participants in conflicts. Social media designed to put friends in touch with one another are promoting ugliness and hatred in creative new ways. Blame has usurped reconciliation; the hunger for power keeps peace out of reach. We get dire climate projections. Trust in leadership erodes. Truth is up for grabs.
No wonder we’re bewildered by the present state of affairs! Perhaps most bewildering is the fact that the large majority of human beings still embrace one of the world’s major religions, all of which hold peaceful co-existence as an essential value. The three monotheistic religions—Judaism, Islam and Christianity—base their faith in a covenant relationship with God. Each holds that God is one, and the faithful express reverence for the Lord through worship. In turn, respect for God inspires compassion for other human beings. For Jews, the Torah comprises the laws that define how the faithful will live together in community following the commandments of God and upholding the terms of the covenant relationship. As the faithful maintain their side of the bargain, God will nourish their spirits and inspire living together in harmony. The Koran offers Muslims a similarly satisfying mutual relationship. It prescribes the codes of behavior required by Allah as interpreted by the Prophet Mohammed, in return for which the faithful will be blessed and will bless one another.
Christians try to follow Jesus’ commandment to love God, with love a relational word that suggests mutuality: sharing, giving and receiving. The Christian Gospel illuminates the kind of relationships we are meant to keep with one another, and it uses God’s love for us as the example, a model. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. We might say that the covenant relationship acts like a tree with our behavior as its fruit. Or to use one of Jesus’ images, it provides good rich soil in which new life can grow, unimpeded and healthy.
But it seems like bad stuff keeps getting in the way of our growing, like weeds in a garden. Material possessions can inhibit growth since they tend to focus attention on ourselves, and they help develop attitudes associated with having a lot of things—pride, arrogance and self-importance. Prejudices interfere with the acceptance of others. Gandhi understood how the layering on of possessions, attitudes and prejudices can muck up the fertile seedbed into which we are born. The accumulation of poisonous weeds infects nations as well as individuals.
Christians recall how Jesus saw himself: not as the Messiah of ancient predictions who would reign as physically powerful and spiritually dominating, but rather as a shepherd—not much of a respected occupation then or now, but one whose fundamental responsibility is concern for the welfare of the flock. As followers of that shepherd, we are called first to hold the image of him to our hearts—to be faithful followers; but just as powerfully he calls us to emulate his caring ways. We are to be shepherds as well as sheep.
Writing to the new Christians in Thessaloniki, Paul established his credentials: “approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel…not to please mortals but to please God….We never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed…But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.” Not just a mother but a mothering nurse! And consider the phrase “caring for.” You know, it may be that we Christians have come to find the word “love” a bit of an abstraction, a word whose denotative meaning has been weakened through overuse and popularization. Paul cared for those seeking to follow Christ, with the term “care for” connoting some activity that actually demonstrates compassion. The phrase suggests that something is taking place that makes things better for the recipient of the caring.
David French, an evangelical Christian, has written about the tragic events that took place at a Cornell University fraternity two years ago. He concludes that it was the absence of caring that brought about the horrifying ways in which a young woman was dealt with. David writes: “It can take courage to care enough about another human being to intervene—especially if a person you don’t know needs protection from people you do know.” The absence of caring led the writer to recall the My Lai massacre, which he terms “one of the worst episodes in American military history. American soldiers in Vietnam went on a killing spree, murdering hundreds of innocent civilians.” He goes on to say that “obviously this massacre was far more extreme than what took place at Cornell, but I bring it up to introduce you to a man named Hugh Thompson, an American hero. He was the army helicopter pilot who saw the massacre from the air, immediately radioed an alarm, and landed his aircraft, placing it between his brothers-in-arms and a small group of innocent civilians they were pursuing. He even ordered his crew to open fire on American soldiers if they tried to kill people he was protecting. He cared for innocent people he did not know, caring for them enough to risk his life and risk the scorn of fellow soldiers as he stopped them from continuing to commit a heinous crime.”
Paul introduces us to a novel idea: loving God with our heart, soul, mind and strength calls on us to behave in ways that are pleasing to God even if not pleasing to mortals. Pleasing God inspires us to seek what is good, to stay involved, to participate, intervene, take a stand. A few days ago, Margaret and I were presented with a personal example: she had food stuck in her esophagus and her breathing was becoming labored. I called 911 and a few minutes later an ambulance arrived. Moments after it pulled up to our doorstep, our across-the-street neighbor was at my side, offering to drive me to the clinic where Margaret was headed. And this young Jewish man stayed in touch until Margaret’s thankfully small crisis was resolved.
Speaking of Jewish men, I attended a lecture this past week given by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman. He cited the Talmud as stating that “in a world that lacks humanity, be human,” and the Rabbi has written that “in a world as untethered as ours has become, simply being human, a good person, is a measure of heroism. At a time when norms of civility are being routinely overwhelmed, it may be the only measure that matters.”
Love God with our whole being, beginning in our hearts. Try our best to please God by following God’s ways and the means at our disposal. Care for one another, where others may include people we don’t know and may never meet. Such activity emanates from our desire to please God. Though discouraged by current events, we followers of Jesus still have a template for making the world a better place. AMEN