Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 11/9/2025
Proper 27 | 11-9-25 | Luke 20: 27-38
Good morning You Mature Fetuses!
I know it's an awkward salutation - but let me explain!
I want to begin by taking you back to the day you were born -
In fact, let's go to one day before the day you were born!
When you were in the womb!
How many people remember that?
They say there are psychologists and psychics who can actually take you back to your days in the womb - but since they're off on Sundays - you've got me instead!
So let's imagine, for a moment, that you've had 9-months of pure bliss swimming around the womb –
Like Aquaman - you're living it up!
Enveloped in amniotic fluid - no need to go grocery shopping, decorate the place, or pay the rent - it's all done for you!
You are at peace - you get to sleep in - every day!
You never have to take out the garbage!
And you can walk around the place naked!
That is - until that one day - before you're born!
Graduation day!
Eviction day!
And that beautiful, bright mind of yours is about to be blown.
There you are - in the birth canal - the launching pad - the green room -
And if you could remember back to that day - do you suppose you would have any idea what the next day would look like?
Would that little, tiny, mind of yours have any way to imagine the sound of Michigan Stadium on a Saturday at a Wolverine home game? The sight of those brilliant autumn colors wrestling on the myriad of different trees under a cloudless Midwestern sky?
Or the smell of a Hunter House cheeseburger, grilled onions and all?
No - your life in the womb, warm, dark, and predictable - is about to change in ways you could never, ever imagine.
So.... How accurately can we conceive of heaven, while we're here on earth?
Isn't that what Jesus is getting at with the Sadducees in this morning's Gospel?
Yes, these religious leaders have come to play 'Stump the Stars' with Jesus - equipped with a silly question about a serious topic.
And the answer Jesus gives is so liberating, so life-giving, and so needful - that all week long as I was preparing this sermon - my prayer was for you and me - that we can get a firmer grasp of this truth - that life with God - Eternal Life - is that dramatic - That the terms 'born again' - 'darkness to light' - 'death to life' - are not inappropriate - for we are children of the resurrection! As heaven is not solely meant to be a reward of eventuality at the conclusion of some earthly test-drive - "eternal life" is meant to be a lived reality in the here and now.
The Gospel you and I have is mind-blowing - explosive - and not supposed to be a guilt-inducing, daily-drudgery: endured, never enjoyed.
I know we can get that impression, even the Church has been complicit -
No! The reason it's called 'Good News' is because it has the power to give us heaven there and here - to alter our view today - to go from restless to restful - stressful to serene - and even turn our anger into amusement.
It's the difference between seeing the world as a locked-in square - that corals and constrains -
Instead of a diamond - whose shine and sparkle piques our imaginations and invites us into something priceless - because how much would you, me, our country, this world pay - for that precious gemstone of peace?
This is what Jesus spent so much time explaining - this altered view - the Kingdom of God - it comes into us by Spirit - and becomes real to us through choice. Christian discipleship.
The Early Church didn't use this terminology - but we do: We're dealing with neuro pathways that are well-trodden and deeply embedded - and that can be changed -
The same way we change our diet, our jobs, and our attitudes - it requires something of us: it takes work!
"Whoever wants to follow me must take up their cross!"
This is not about physical labor - but emotional labor - intellectual labor - spiritual labor - to change our outlooks through the power of the Spirit!
Remember when I told you the story about the office worker in the cafeteria - who sits down with her friends for lunch - opens up her lunch bag, pulls out a peanut butter sandwich - and says:
"Oh no! A peanut butter sandwich, I hate peanut butter sandwiches!"
Then the next day she comes in - sits with the same people - opens her lunch bag and again exclaims: "Oh no! A peanut butter sandwich, I hate peanut butter sandwiches!"
Then on the third day - when she sits down, opens her bag with her same friends and says the same thing - one of her friends turns to her and asks: "If you hate peanut butter sandwiches so much, why don't you tell your husband to stop making them!?" To which she replies, "Oh, my husband doesn't make my lunch, I do."
We are the people who have the choices - who make the decisions - who choose which sandwiches we want to feed ourselves!
A huge problem we face, friends, is a physics problem - it's called inertia - it's Newton's first law - "An object at rest, stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion - unless acted on by an external force."
This is is why the most difficult exercise of your regular health club routine is getting out of bed: standing up to that inertia!
Those embedded neuro pathways - been there, doing that, for a long time - are hard to change - but not impossible - especially when that external force we have available - is the Gospel!
The Good News Jesus preached was of a God who connects with our spirits - and allows us to say: "I've had enough of the demons of harmful routine and unhealthy habit, of darkness and dread, apathy and hopelessness - and I believe that with God all things are possible:
The "same old, same old" need not be our CREDO.
What is it God is asking you to cast out this morning - and what is it God is asking you to take on?
Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Is it time to stand up to that nasty habit, routine, and pattern?
You are a child of resurrection - to whom all things are possible!
How are you going to start?
You heard me tell you about that social media experiment - and the guy who used his computer to go onto that platform and only click on cute videos of puppies.
Every day - a puppy video - then soon enough, another one, another one...
Guess what? Pretty soon - every video that came on his feed - was puppies.
Why? What was he clicking on?
What are WE clicking on?
WE cultivate our surroundings.
Want to be more heavenly minded, click on the things that bring us heaven.
And what do we find in heaven? Love, joy, peace, kindness, mutual respect, and care for one another.
Click on these things!
Sooner or later, we become our surroundings.
And now more than ever, this world needs us to be a people who click on love, joy, peace, kindness, and mutual care for one another!
Don't be deceived, each one of us plays a role in the ongoing dialog of our communities.
We often think tiny thoughts of ourselves - "Oh, my opinion doesn't matter, I'm too small to make a difference" - but science - your Spirit and our God - tell us differently: that the way most things change, is by small forces - a whole lot of them: dramatic change starts on a molecular level.
And we read our papers, watch our TVs and see that things need to change -
Have you noticed a rise in campaigns against women, people of color, Jews, Mormons, gay people, and a rise in authoritarianism?
Have you noticed a rise in Christian Nationalism?
These are people who put political power before religion. They are willing to compromise Biblical positions in exchange for earthly power.
This week in Colorado, as voters went to the polls to decide if the state should pay give free lunch to poor children, the only group that came out against this was an evangelical organization called Focus on the Family - saying that taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill.
The attempted cut in SNAP funding, putting the food pipeline to 42 million Americans into jeopardy - and stretching the capacity of food pantries like ours - is not something Christians should be applauding - when Jesus and the Bible tell us that he, himself was, born to peasant parents; his first promise was to bring good news to the poor; and his pledge was that those who serve the poor, serve him. Neglecting the poor is not biblical.
What the world needs is people who are not tempted to compromise the Faith for political gain - but to cry 'foul' - and offer an alternative to the politics of this earth by living out the politics of heaven.
Remember my opening remarks - and just as that fetus has no conception of the reality that surrounds - perhaps, you and I suffer likewise - and have no idea of the big impact of our little decisions to do the right thing.
What's the next right thing for you this morning?
What neuro pathways need redirection?
How can you start?
My dear, dear ones - what a blessed calling we have!
What great companionship we share!
Thank you for joining me - for being here - for forming this remarkable community - for making a difference in my life - and in our community! You and me - children of the resurrection - whose high calling is to live into that reality: that the heaven that awaits is already here!
Let us go and together do the hard work of making it so!
Amen.