430 Swamped in Forgiveness

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Swamped in Forgiveness”, originally shared on September 11, 2026. It was the 430^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   Have you ever found yourself with a massive debt that you couldn’t possibly repay, and then it was forgiven? Yes, you have! Today, we’re going to find out what it was.

   We’ve had some weather this past week! Unseasonably heavy rain was a welcome break after our normally dry summer.

   The people living on the Southern California coasts would not be saying it was welcome, though.

   The side slip of Hurricane Marie destroyed sections of the boardwalk and beach in Long Beach and Dana Point and damaged homes. The beach is gone in some areas.

   Actor Nicholas Cage’s home in Malibu was undermined and its sinking during high tides and high surf caused a gas leak.

   I’ve been thinking for a while that rising sea levels could make our home in La Verne beach front property in several hundred years but, maybe it will be sooner. 😊

   There were a couple of days when the combination of heat and humidity here was the highest in the nation!

   And many experts say that this is just a preview of what the “Super El Niño” conditions could bring this winter.

   The things that we’ve seen on TV reminded me of a parable that Jesus told in Matthew 7:24-27,

²⁴ “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. ²⁵ The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷ The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”

   We have been awash with rain and high tides this week like many of us are awash in debt. The foundation on which we are built is being undermined.

   The US national debt today is over $40 trillion.  That amount would make every person living in the United States responsible for $116,800.00 if it were divided equally, according to U.S. Treasury fiscal data.

   The average credit card debt for Americans is $6,659 per person, according to Experian data from 2026.

   According to U.S. News and World Report, 37% to 43% of Americans could not cover a sudden $400 to $1,000 emergency expense using only their personal savings.

   In Matthew 18:21-35, the Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, Jesus tells the story of an impossible debt. But its meaning is placed in the context of forgiveness.

   Peter asks, in Matthew 18:21-22,

²¹ Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

   The expectation was that a person should forgive another person three times to meet the requirement of the religious Law.

   One of our modern sayings is even less forgiving: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

   Peter might have thought that he was being especially properly religious by asking if he should forgive as many as seven times. We might call that “virtue signaling”. 😊

   Jesus’ response was to put the number way higher at 77 times, and he explains why with a parable in the remaining verses, Matthew 18:23-34,

²³ “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. ²⁴ When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; ²⁵ and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. ²⁶ So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ ²⁷ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸ But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ ²⁹ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ ³⁰ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. ³¹ When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. ³² Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³ Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.

   This parable is the story of a slave who owed a king an impossible debt. It would have been about $2.5 billion at the time and, though it’s almost impossible to adjust for inflation over such a great amount of time, it could be hundreds of billions of dollars, adjusted for inflation today. This is not likely a literal number. The circumstances under which a king would loan a slave this kind of money are unthinkable, even if he had been able to accumulate that much money, which is also unlikely.

   Using an extreme example of something was a common rhetorical technique in the Middle East during Jesus’ time on earth for saying that the point of the parable was extremely important.

   It’s like where Jesus says, a little earlier in this chapter, in Matthew 18:8-9,

⁸ “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire. ⁹ And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire.

   If we were supposed to understand that literally, there’d be a whole lot of one handed, one footed, one-eyed people around, including you and me.

   And, here, the huge debt in the parable is owed by a slave.

   Slavery is not commanded, and it was moderated for those times, in the Bible.

   Slavery has been practiced in every civilization on earth since the dawn of time. It was only ended by Christians in Great Britian and the United States in the 19^th century both in the Western World and in all the countries over which they had influence, if not outright control.

   There are still millions of people being held in slavery today in Muslim countries, and many more if you count “wage slaves” in the Far East.

   In fact, the first war that  the new United States of America fought was to end slavery in the Barbary Coast of North Africa. It was the origin of the first line of the U.S. Marines’ Hymn, “From the Halls of Montezuma (note: in the Mexican-American War) to the shores of Tripoli (note: in Libya, earlier)”.

   The slave in the parable is forgiven an impossible debt, and then confronts a fellow slave over a relatively small debt. When the fellow slave begs for patience and a little more time, the first slave has him thrown into debtor’s prison until his whole debt is paid.

   The other slaves were very upset by this and reported it to the king. The king was enraged and had the first slave sent, not just to jail, but to be tortured until the full debt was paid. This seems to be an obvious reference to Hell.

   Then comes the kicker at the end of the parable, in Matthew 18:35, where Jesus says,

³⁵ So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

   This is not gentle Jesus, meek and mild. This is the Jesus who will judge the world at the end of time.

   And not only does Jesus require that Christians forgive a brother or sister but that we do so “from your heart.”

   It’s explained by 16^th century Church reformer, Martin Luther, in his explanation of the Fifth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”, which I’m sure all of us who have gone through Lutheran confirmation classes remember. 😊

   Luther said, “We ask in this prayer that our heavenly Father would not regard our sins nor deny these petitions on their account, for we are worthy of nothing for which we ask, nor have we earned it.

   Instead we ask that God would give us all things by grace, for we sin daily and indeed deserve only punishment.

   So, on the other hand, we, too, truly want to forgive heartly and to do good gladly to those who sin against us.”

   We have been forgiven the immense debt of sin that we carry that has separated us from God. There is no way that we could repay it. In fact, we continue to add to our debt of sin every day.

    We who truly understand the eternal significance of the great gift that we have received in the forgiveness of our sins, want to forgive those who have sinned against us in response to God’s underserved love, that is, in response to God’s grace.  

   If you had to summarize everything that Lutherans believe and teach in one word, it would be “grace”.

   That doesn’t mean that we can do anything we want because God will forgive us. It means that what we want is to please God, in gratitude for all that God has done and has continued to do for us.

   It doesn’t mean that anything that people do against us that is wrong should just be forgiven. That would lead to anarchy. But it does mean that we should release the anger from our heart, to forgive as we have been forgiven. We are to seek justice, but as justice is defined in the Bible, as doing God’s will.

   We marked the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, 9-11 last Friday. Should we seek justice with regard to those responsible for those attacks, or should we seek forgiveness?

   I think that we could seek both: forgiveness from our hearts to release the burden of hate, and an expectation that the requirements of the law will be respected.

   I remember that day and the impromptu prayer service I called for that evening. I remember leading our congregation in prayer for the victims as well as for our enemies, and I remember how hard that was.

   The text for today has to do with forgiveness of a brother or a sister in Christ. But Christianity is very broad in who we define as our neighbor, and how we are called to treat them, and why.

   I think that our text teaches about our call to act generously toward others because of the great debt that was cancelled at the cross for all who believe and are Baptized. We get rid of our enemies when we make them our brothers and sisters in Christ by leading them to receive the grace of God.

   I was speaking with a fellow pastor many years ago who told me that he thought that he was doing an excellent job of preaching about grace, because nobody in his congregation wanted to do anything. 😊

   That’s not the way it works!

   It’s just as easy for us, as it was for the first slave in the parable, to forget about what God has done for us, and what it took to do it on the cross.

   But Christian communities don’t form around politics, or social values, or race, or common needs and interests, or anything but around those who have received mercy and forgiveness from God and who want to respond with love for God and for one another.

   How do we live the Christian life? Here’s how Jesus answered that question when a bunch of Pharisees tested him, in Matthew 22:34-40,

³⁴ When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, ³⁵ and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶ “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” ³⁷ He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

   This is at the core of the meaning of today’s Gospel lesson. One naturally follows the other.

   The last sentence of this week’s Gospel reading, Matthew 18:35, “³⁵ So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”, may sound harsh, and it is. But only to those who are perishing.

   Sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ, of salvation by faith alone through grace alone, and not by what we do or don’t do, falls on deaf ears if people don’t understand the Bad News first.

   This is not a story about life and death. It’s way more important than that.

   When I was in seminary, I took a class on futures studies. At the end of that class, I thought that with overpopulation and diminishing resources there was no way that I would live past my early 50’s, yet here I am at 78.

   I saw on the news this week that a senior researcher for the San Francisco-based AI company, Anthropic, said that he believes that there is a greater than 10% chance that AI will destroy all human life within the next 10 years.

   Today, with all the concerns about extreme weather and climate change, rising tides and unpredictable weather patterns, we may be concerned, but we are not worried.

   Will God’s judicial justice prevail in the Last Judgement, or God’s judicial mercy?

   There is no gentle Jesus today. Jesus gives us a hard answer.

   Does this seem like an uncharacteristically harsh Jesus, fully God and fully human being? I don’t think so. I think that Jesus is describing the mechanics of faith.

   As John writes, in 1 John 4:16-19,

16 So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because he first loved us.

   The End is not something that we haven’t pondered before. In fact, it’s central to our worldview, though in distinctly more optimistic and purpose-filled terms.

   Jesus’ answer to sin is Jesus. On the cross.

   We who were swamped in the debt of sin have now been swamped in forgiveness through the love and grace of God. 😊

   That is good news to all humanity, whose debt of sin was insurmountable, and it’s the good news that we have been called by God, and sent and equipped to share with those we know who are still in their sin, separated from God’s grace.

   We announce forgiveness, because we ourselves have first been forgiven and restored to newness of life in Jesus Christ.

   Every Sunday, the vast majority of churches throughout the world, confess together their common core beliefs in what are called “creeds”, from the Latin word “credo”, that means “I believe…”

   The two primary creeds are The Apostles and The Nicene, and they include these words about the end:

   Nicene: “He (Jesus) will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”

   Apostles: “He (Jesus) will come again to judge the living and the dead.”

   So, we know that there will be a last judgment, and we know that when Jesus comes, there will be people who are living. Nothing, including ourselves, will have destroyed us.

   A colleague once said that one of his seminary professors summarized the Bible’s book about the end, Revelation, with two words, “God wins.”

   We forgive others because God has first forgiven us. God has won the final victory for us over sin, death, and all the forces that defy God, at the cross. We will not stand on our own on the last day, but on the steadfast grace of God alone.

   We have no need to fear the future. We long for it. A new heaven and a new earth is coming. It will be as God intended from the beginning.

   In fact, what is thought to be the first Christian prayer is found at the end of the last book of the Bible, in Revelation 22:20,

   The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”

   Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

429 When To Judge

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “When To Judge”, originally shared on September 4, 2026. It was the 429^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   Do you think that it’s ever OK to judge somebody? Bring an open mind because, today, we’re going to take a field trip to the counter-cultural courtroom.

   The bedrock under a massive glacier on the Langtang Lirung peak near the Nepal-China border collapsed a week ago last Wednesday, on August 27^th. Those who saw the news story on television saw hundreds of people being killed right in front of their eyes by the flooding that followed, smashing large buildings and small villages and swallowing them whole.

   Over 1,000 people are now confirmed dead as of this writing, and 4,400 people are missing, including 900 workers from the hydropower tunnels in Nepal. Experts say that more glaciers in that area may still collapse soon.

   Did those who died deserve to die? Were they being punished for their sins?

   There were people in Jesus’ days on earth who would have judged that those people deserved what they got. It was a popular religious view at that time.

   Jesus said that that’s not the way it works with God. God’s ways are often hidden from human beings, and it is impossible for people to see if there are connections between good deeds and God’s rewards and bad deeds and God’s punishments.

   Once, when Jesus was in Jerusalem, there had been both an atrocity and a construction accident close together. We read about it in Luke 13:1-5,

13 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. ² He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? ³ No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. ⁴ Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? ⁵ No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

   It is hard to know what’s going on in the world, and especially what it means for us.

   I heard a story once about a Chinese rancher who was visited by his neighbor, who hadn’t been by for a while.

   “How are things going?” the neighbor said. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.

   “What do you mean you don’t know?”

   “Well, he said, “do you remember the big thunderstorm we had a couple of months ago?”

   “Yes.”

   “All my horses got spooked and smashed out or the coral.” “That’s bad, right?” said the neighbor. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.

   “What do you mean you don’t know?”

   “My men went out to get them and they found my horses and 5 mustangs.” “That’s good, right?”, said the neighbor. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.

   “What do you mean you don’t know?”

   “My son tried to break one of them and he got thrown and broke his arm.” “That’s bad, right?” said the neighbor. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.

   “What do you mean you don’t know?”

   “A warlord came by the next day and conscripted all my men, but he didn’t take my son because he had a broken arm.” “That’s good, right?” said the neighbor. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.

   “What do you mean you don’t know?”

   And the story keeps going on and on like that.

   We may not know whether what happens to us is really good or really bad in life, but we can know the power of God to save us. It is demonstrated to us in Jesus Christ. It comes from outside of ourselves. It is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, primarily through the Bible.

   To say that we do know God’s works and God’s ways would be to put ourselves on the same level as God. It would make our judgement equal to God’s judgment. Jesus said that this would be an expression of our self-righteousness and of our hypocritical attitude toward others. Jesus warns us to fix our own serious faults before trying to fix the minor faults of others.

   Christians hear the words, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged” more often as an epithet against us when our values don’t align with someone else’s values.

   We hear them when people are protecting their own judgements on matters like abortion, sexuality, and divorce, the hot button social issues, and more.

   They call our beliefs “judgmental” when we disagree with their beliefs. “Doesn’t the Bible say that we’re not supposed to judge?” they say. But they’re not asking a question. They believe that they are superior and are judging us. It’s exactly what Jesus calls us not to do.

   They miss the wisdom and the call for humility by Jesus because they don’t read the verses that follow the “Judge not!” verse.

   Here’s the whole passage of what Jesus says in Matthew 7:1-5,

7 “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. ² For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. ³ Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

   But, at the same time, being judgmental is part of who Christians are called to be. We just call it what it is: discernment, accountability to God through a Christian community, and Church discipline.

   In fact, the Bible is full of places where we are commanded to judge. It’s obvious.

   Jesus says, in John 7:24,

²⁴ Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

   Paul’s letter to the Church in Corinth includes the words, in 1 Corinthians 6:2-3,

² Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? ³ Do you not know that we are to judge angels—to say nothing of ordinary matters?

   That’s the right kind of judgement, with which Christians are called to live and to prepare.

   Judgment can also tear Christian communities like Churches apart.

   Judgement is like nitroglycerin. It can blow up bridges, or it can heal the human heart.

   Conflict happens even among Christians.

   Jesus witnessed it among his closest disciples.

   He empowers us and leaves the resolution of conflict in the church to the church.

   Why? Do we have divine superpowers? No. The Church is the Body of Christ, and Christ is the head of the Church. Whatever we decide or do, it is done in accord with God’s will because who we are is a product of the living relationship with God  given to us in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit.

   We sometimes experience conflict, and we learn how to deal with it in the Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, Matthew 18:15-20.

   We saw that, when Jesus spoke about the Temple atrocity and the construction accident in Jerusalem, Jesus took a longer view. He said that the way to deal with sudden, unjust, and seemingly random death is not to judge those who experience the misfortune, but to repent, to turn away from our sin. Now. Or we will be unprepared when death comes to us. Don’t fix the blame, Jesus says. Fix the problem.

   When Jesus speaks of immediate and personal sins against us by members of our Christian community, our church, Jesus counsels a more immediate and personal approach. He begins with a judgement against a brother or sister in Christ that starts the whole process of reconciliation to them.

   We see it at the beginning of this week’s Gospel reading, in Matthew 18:15-17,

¹⁵ “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. ¹⁶ 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. ¹⁷ 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.

   There’s the process:

1.)  Go to the person who you judge has done something against you or your beliefs and talk with them, just the two of you. They may not be aware of the fault and in humility may be grateful for learning something; but you must be clear, it is assumed, that it is you who is in the right.

2.)  If they don’t hear you and repent, make sure that you are hearing them correctly via witnesses. Make sure that you understand what the person who you think has sinned against you has said or done, and that two or three others from your Christian community hear what they said or did against you, and if the witnesses agree that you are right, they are called to encourage the person to repent.

3.)  If the person who has sinned against you still won’t repent, and if the whole community and you are in agreement that you are in the right, then the one who has committed the offense has removed themselves. They are not part of God’s community, like a gentile, and are a betrayer, like a tax collector.

   But, remember how Jesus dealt with gentiles and tax collectors? He didn’t give up on them. He continued to call them to repent and to be forgiven and to be restored to the Christian community.

   But there is an even more personal and more immediate path to reconciliation with a brother or sister who you have judged to have sinned against you.

   Does your church practice the Passing of the Peace in worship?

   The Passing of the Peace is not a time for friendly greetings or to catch up on what’s happening in your lives. It’s a time to say, “we’re good”, we cast away all animosity and are reconciled with each other as Christ has reconciled us with God!

   It means to be reconciled right there on the spot, with your brother or sister in Christ, during worship. It begins with the judgement that someone has done something to us that requires reconciliation. And we are given a process for that reconciliation.

   It comes from Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:23-24,

²³ So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and come and offer your gift.

   Where does the authority to grant that reconciliation come from?

   This week’s Gospel reading concludes with the answer, in Matthew 18:18-20,

¹⁸ 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. ¹⁹ Again, 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. ²⁰ For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

   How does that work? It is based in Jesus’ words, “in my name.”

   To say that we are agreeing with one another to do something in Jesus’ name, or to do something “in the name of Jesus”, by itself, is not invoking some magic words, like in Harry Potter where you say something in Latin and it just happens. 😊

   To ask Jesus to do something in Jesus’ name means to ask Jesus to act in accord with his true self. It means to ask Jesus to do his will, as we pray in the Lord’s prayer, “thy will be done”, not to get Jesus to do our will.

   We act in accord with God’s will as a natural result of our hearts, our true selves, turned to God. God has changed us.  We resonate with God through the work of the Holy Spirit, we sense his presence within us and the re-formation of our truest selves. That internal reshaping is what guides what we do in response.

   What we do, we do even in a broken world.

   Our son James came over to help me do some yard work this past week.

   We were pulling dead grass and pine needles from the land on one side of our house in order to make sure that the water sprinklers were clear under the trees.

   At one point, I pulled on some green leaves, which turned out not to be leaves but plastic tape that looked like leaves wrapped around a box. The only thing that was showing from the box was a lens! I called the sheriff’s department to report what I found.

   Someone had placed a camouflaged wireless camera in our bushes in order to keep an eye on our neighbor across the street. Whoever did it was keeping track of when he and his family were at home and when they were not at home. Our neighbor had already been robbed twice! The sheriffs said that they were especially targeting Asians.

   After the sheriffs arrived, our neighbor came over and noticed another camera in our bushes! The cameras, however, may have contained information that will lead back to those who put them there. When they are found, there will be a path to reconciliation.

   Our world is broken, but the cross has made whole all who repent and receive a living relationship of faith with the one true living God

   And, Jesus says at the conclusion our Gospel reading, in Matthew 18:20,

²⁰ For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

   What are the operative words in that sentence? “In my name”.

   To say something, or to do something, in Jesus’ name, is to do it in the nature of Jesus’ true self. It means to act in accord with God’s will.

   That’s why we can get a weird, and sometimes wildly misinterpreted, statement that treats Jesus’ words like magic and not as a miracle.

   Jesus is present in our worship services, but also whenever two or three Christians are gathered together and are in accord with God’s will!

   Why two or three?

   Have you ever driven in the HOV lane on the freeway? HOV stands for “High Occupancy Vehicle”. Do you know how many people you need to have in a car before it is considered “high occupancy”?

   Two. That is, one more than single occupancy. 😊

   It’s the same for the Christian life. Two is the minimum needed to act in Jesus name because that was the minimum number of witnesses required in a court of law where Jesus lived on earth. It’s also the minimum number needed to have a relationship. A restored relationship with God accomplished by Jesus on the cross is what Christianity is all about.

   And two, plus Jesus present in the midst of them, is very high occupancy.

   That is a presence that we need to make more apparent as the presence of God.

   Today, as the influence of Christianity is declining in our culture, we seem to be going backwards, and it’s not difficult to see the consequences.

   Today we are concerned about another land war in Europe, in the Middle East, and in the Far East, even talking in terms of World War III. We know that that wouldn’t end well.

   Albert Einstein reportedly said, “I know not what weapons will be used to fight World War III, but I’m confident that World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

   We are rightly concerned about the rise of both fascism and totalitarianism, Islamism, Artificial Intelligence, toxic politics, crime, the breakdown of traditional families, the loss of basic civil and social values, education, and of civilization itself. And we are so afraid of being called “judgmental” that we are afraid to speak up to resist anything that is not in accord with God’s will for human flourishing.

   Yet, we cannot act as if we can isolate ourselves from the consequences of our declining influence and even hostility in our culture.

   Instead, we are called to face those who sin against us and seek reconciliation.

   We are concerned about what is going on in the world and we want to do the right thing, but are we worried? No. God’s will will be done in God’s time.

   When are we called to judge? When the core values of the Christian life are attacked. Paul gives us a starting point in Galatians 5:22-23,

²² By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

   El Nino is forming. We might get rain this weekend. Winter might actually be coming to Southern California this year.

   But it will bring good, as well has harm. We cannot always know whether what happens in our lives is for good or  for evil.

   What we can know is that when we judge rightly, even in conflict, and especially in our attempts to resolve conflict with repentance and reconciliation, God is with us.

   God never abandons us. God calls us to lead all people to the same reconciliation that we ourselves have first received from God.

   We see it in the one verse in the Bible that 16^th century Church reformer, Martin Luther, called the Gospel in miniature, John 3:16,

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

   We judge with the same grace we have first received from God.

428 I'm Not Alone With

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “I’m Not Alone With”, originally shared on August 27, 2026. It was the 428^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
   Do you sometimes feel lonely as a Christian in this world? Today, we have good news for you!
   I saw a video online last weekend that showed a person type into the Google search bar, “I’m alone with a _________.”
   He ended the sentence with the name of a religion like Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu person, Jewish person, or even Atheist, Agnostic, or Satanist. The computer’s response called for calm, tolerance, and understanding for each one.
   But when the person typed in “I’m alone with a Christian”, the Google AI overview response was, “"If you are feeling unsafe, uncomfortable, or need to leave your current situation right away, please trust your instincts and move to a safe, public place or call 911.” It did also note that being a Christian, by itself, does not constitute a threat and advised them to treat Christians with normal respect if there was no danger.
   No other religious or anti-religious group received the same safety warning.
   None.
   I thought that it couldn’t be true, so I tried it myself.
   I got the same result!
   Last Monday, however, the warning was gone.
   I found an explanation that the warning was triggered because of the words “I’m alone with”, but the fact was that no safety warning was given for any other religion or anti-religious group other than Christians.
   Apparently, Google quietly adjusted the system’s behavior. But who adjusted the system to warn against only Christians in the first place?
   And, more importantly, what does it mean?
   We get a hint in the Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, Matthew 16:21-28.
   The reading is a continuation of last week’s Gospel reading where Jesus is in Caesarea Philippi, just north of Judea, with his disciples. He asks them who people say that he is. They tell him that the people have relatively low expectations.
   Jesus asks Peter who he thinks that Jesus is. Peter answers, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
   Jesus affirms Peter. That’s the good news for Peter.
   Then we come to this week’s reading, and Peter gets some bad news, some very bad news, in Matthew 16:21-23,
²¹ From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. ²² And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” ²³ But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
   Well, that escalated quickly! The bad news is that Jesus is going to be killed (and be raised on the third day). Peter explodes at what seems to him as impossibly bad news. Peter rebukes Jesus. And then Peter is rebuked with what must be the most stinging rebuke of all time: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
   God reveals to Peter that Jesus, who is fully God and fully a human being, is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” and Peter was commended for saying it out loud.
   Then, Peter went from having a really good encounter with Jesus, to having about the worst you can imagine.
   At the time that this reading took place, many people referred to Jesus merely as Jesus of Nazareth, the place where he grew up. But today, we sometimes refer to Jesus as Jesus Christ, which is short for “Jesus, the Christ”, because “Christ” comes from the Greek word Christos, which translates the ancient Hebrew word Mashiach (Messiah).
   Many people in Peter’s day believed that when God sent a deliverer, the Messiah, an anointed one like the great kings of Israel, like King David, he would be a great military leader who would deliver them from the Roman army. That’s one of the reasons Jesus drew such an enthusiastic crowd as he rode into Jerusalem on the day we call Palm Sunday.
   People are people.
   We all tend to want Jesus to serve us, and on our own terms. It’s an expression of our sinfulness.
   But when Peter heard that Jesus was going to suffer and be rejected by the religious authorities, and be killed and then rise again, this just sounded nuts to him.
   He began to rebuke Jesus! His reaction was over the top!
   Jesus looks at his disciples and in turn rebukes Peter saying, “Get behind me, Satan!” Why? Because Peter was thinking only of human things, not on the things of God. Jesus, who was at the same time fully human and fully God, came to die.
   We all know people like Peter. Peter was the impulsive one.
   We see it when Roman soldiers and police from the chief priests and Pharisees came to arrest Jesus the night that he was betrayed, in John 18:10-11,
¹⁰ Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. ¹¹ Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (BTW, Jesus heals the ear.) 😊
   Peter acts in a way that he thought was good behavior, a courageous defense of Jesus.
   Jesus said he didn’t need defending and Peter was again rebuked because before people can know the Good News, they first have to know the bad news.
   One of my favorite Christmas stories happened when I was serving at Faith Lutheran Church in San Dimas.
   We had an excellent pre-school and one day one of the pre-school moms stopped by my office to ask if I had a minute to hear a story.
   She said that a friend of hers had invited her family to attend the Christmas-eve midnight mass at a Roman Catholic church and school in a nearby town. The church was full and there were a lot of children.
   Just before the sermon the affable local priest invited the children to come forward for the children’s sermon and her son, a student in our pre-school, went forward.
   The priest gathered the 20 or so small children around him and asked if they knew what they were celebrating. “Christmas!” they all said,
   “And who can tell me what happened at Christmas?” About half of the children volunteered, “Jesus was born!”
   “That’s right”, the priest said. “And who can tell me where Jesus was before he was born?” Some fewer children said, “In heaven.”
   “That’s right,” said the priest. “But heaven must be a terrible place for Jesus to want to come here to be born in a barn.” “No,” even fewer children said. “Heaven is a wonderful place.”
   “Well, why would Jesus leave a wonderful place like heaven to be born here on earth?”, the priest asked. No hand went up except for that one visiting child’s.
   The child said, “So he could die for us.”
   The priest was very pleased, and he asked, proudly, “And where did you learn that?”
   The little boy leaned into the priest’s microphone and said loudly, “Faith Lutheran Church.”
   The mother said that the priest laughed. A lot.
   Jesus gave his life for us on the cross. That’s the main event of the Christian faith, validated by taking his life back again in the Resurrection. And sacrifice for others is central to the Christian life that is produced by that faith.
   Jesus spoke to the crowd about sacrifice, in Matthew 16:24-26,
²⁴ Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶ For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
   Jesus speaks about money more than any other subject except the Kingdom of God. Why? He knew that the love of money has the power to warp our true selves. It can shift our values from our focus on the gifts of God, to a focus only on ourselves; from eternity, to only the present.
   Leo Tolstoy, the Russian author of War and Peace and other classics, wrote a short story with that message called, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”
   A man who is greedy for more land hears about a group of simple farmers with a lot of land. He offers to buy their land for a low price. They counter by saying that, for 1,000 rubles, he can have as much land as he can walk around from sunrise to sunset in a single day. But, if he doesn’t get back by sunset, he loses his money and gets no land.
   The man is ecstatic thinking that he has gotten the bargain of a lifetime from these simple farmers. He starts walking, but every time he thinks about circling back, he thinks that if he walks a little farther, he can get more land. He keeps walking. Then when he is far, far away, he makes his loop and starts walking back. But now he realizes that he is way far out, and he starts running to get back in time. He runs faster, and faster. Faster, and faster. He makes it back to the starting point just as the sun sets, but he is fully exhausted, and he dies right there on the spot.
   He is buried in a hole 6 feet long and three feet wide. All the land that a man needs.
   Jesus knows that his teachings are going to be difficult and unpopular with some, but that one day there will be a reconning for how we respond to the gift of faith.
   He addresses this in the concluding verses of this week’s Gospel reading, in Matthew 16:27-28,
²⁷ “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. ²⁸ Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
   There were some standing there who would see the Transfiguration of Jesus, his Post-Resurrection appearances and Ascension, and the Day of Pentecost, all marks of the already but not yet perfected Kingdom of God.
   We live after those events, too, with the emphasis on the “not yet perfected Kingdom of God” part.
   Sometimes I consider the state of the world and the condition of the Church, and I think that maybe we just need to acknowledge that we also live in what Jesus called an “adulterous and sinful generation” and withdraw from it.
   Christians brought into this world the first public hospitals, the first orphanages, the foundation for a scientific worldview, the first public education, the first universities, and more. We ended slavery and the abandonment of unwanted babies in the Western world. We still oversee the largest non-profit, non-governmental social service organizations in the world. We bring the best Good News to the world that it has ever heard, and yet we see our natural empathy weaponized against us.
   Sometimes I think that when the world sees Christians as the worst, that we are almost universally portrayed in popular media as uptight hypocrites, psychotic killers, pearl-clutching, anti-science, fascist hate mongers from whom the world needs to be protected, I think that maybe it’s time to wait it out until the end time when Jesus comes again to judge the living and the dead.
   Sometimes I think that we need to build small, local, self-sufficient schools that teach farming and the trades in addition to the great ideas, moral education, critical thinking, and higher learning, and just be like salt, and light, and leaven in the world.
   Maybe we need to establish Christian communities that are both defended against and serve the local communities.
   And maybe not.
   Jesus says, “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.
   I’m content to let God be the judge and, meanwhile, to try to bring as many people to Christ’s salvation as possible.
   When I first started serving the church I served in San Dimas we were still in the smaller old church and we did not have air-conditioning.
   My hero in church development, Lyle Schaller, said that if a church has no air-conditioning, its members should be polled to see how many of them have air-conditioning in their homes. If the answer is 60% or more, air-conditioning isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.
   So, we raised the money and installed air-conditioning, and the next Saturday we had a huge wedding.
   It had been over 90 degrees most of the week, and the day of the wedding it was over 100, like it’s been here this week. 😊 The church was packed, and I went out to talk with the congregation before the service started. I said that we had just installed air-conditioning, and weren’t they glad that they were there that Saturday instead of the Saturday before?
   After the service was over, I stood at the door of the church, shaking hands with people as they left.
   One guest shook my hand and said (I think a least half seriously), “I don’t think that churches should have air-conditioning.”
   “Why not?” I asked.
   “Because I think that people should have to sit there and contemplate the alternative,” he answered. 😊
   Jesus did not abandon the world in its sinfulness. He came to serve, and he died for us. And he calls us to serve sacrificially with the same spirit.
   Richard Halverson, former Chaplain of the United States Senate, once said,
“In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. And, finally, it moved to America, where it became an enterprise.”
   Would it be better for the Church today to re-focus, to be “a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ”?
   I think so.
   I read an article a while ago on why Finland is sometimes rated the happiest country in the world. It pointed to the research that identifies these three characteristics:
1.) a strong sense of community and relatedness
2.) doing good deeds for other people
3.) finding a clear purpose for oneself
   Strong community. Good deeds. A clear purpose.
   Are not all of these at the heart of what is means to be a Christian? And yet they are not, by themselves, enough to make people happy.
   I read another article, by a Finnish psychologist, who pointed to the high rates of depression among Finnish people.
   Can both be true? It certainly is true among Christians.
   Part of our worldview, our understanding of reality, is that people were created for a living relationship with the one true living God.
   We rejected it.
   Jesus died to restore it. That relationship of faith is free to all who turn away from their rejection of God and open their hearts to see the face of Jesus.
   No one knows what Jesus looks like literally, but every culture’s art shows Jesus looking like them. That’s the Jesus of faith. The One who loves me and who also is one of us.
   But the Jesus of history is more specific. He is a person from a certain place and in a certain time. 
   A 2011 BBC documentary “Son of God” showed a skull from 1st century Israel, found by archeologists, that was reconstructed, CSI style, with flesh and tendons, etc. to give a picture of what Jesus might have looked like. The author pointed out that the olive skin tone, and black, shortish hair and beard were correct, but everything else was just a guess. Jesus’ hair in the picture was kind of scruffy because, in Jesus’ time, men cut their hair with a knife.
   That Jesus, the Jesus of history, challenges us.
   Are we living from faith? Are our minds not on human things but on divine things? Are we grateful for the cross? Do we have what we need to know God?
   We still live in a fallen world where sin continues to separate the world from God, and we experience the negative aspects of life as a result. We are saints and sinners.
   We can’t always expect to be happy here. Are you happy? In these times?
   We can’t promise that Christians will have a happy life. But we can promise joy!
   We may sometimes be depressed, or angry, or discouraged. But beneath those things lies an indestructible joy that is at the core of holy living. It comes with the recovery of our true selves, a gift that can only come from the cross, the gift that means that though we are sinners, we can be reconciled to God through faith alone as a gift. That is the joy that comes even and especially when the world gives us none.
   St. Paul reminds us of this in his letter to the church at Rome, in Romans 1:16-17,
¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”
   What does this mean? It means that we are never truly alone when the abiding, indestructible presence of God is within us. We may be lonely sometimes, but we are never alone when we are alone with Jesus. We need not be anxious about what the world thinks of us,
   Jesus said, in John 16:33,
33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”
   God loves every person in this world and wants no one to be lost. But being opposed by the world is not unusual for Christians. In fact, it’s normal.
   Let us be the means by which God puts all people right before it is too late.
   Be the one who encourages others to say, “I’m never alone when I’m with Jesus.”