This Jesus Should Make Us Uncomfortable

The 14th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
Sermon for August 30, 2026

My friends, I speak to you today in the name of one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.

Good morning, Church of the Epiphany. I have no fun transitions for us this morning from the lectionary readings into the sermon, no friendly words of welcome or jokes to kick us off on the right, cheerful foot. Sorry for that, especially to any visitors. See, this last week, I have been consumed with what happened in Nepal. I tried to give everyone a heads up in the enotes on Friday that I’d be preaching about this disaster; if you have not heard what happened over the course of the last four days, let me fill you in just a bit.

On Wednesday, August 26, a massive glacier collapsed in the Himalayas; if you’re unfamiliar with that part of the world, that’s the mountain range that forms much of the boundary between China and India, and it includes the entirety of the country of Nepal. Mount Everest is there, located on the border between Nepal and China. This massive glacier that collapsed caused what was first reported to be an earthquake, measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale, and that seismic event caused a landslide, which flooded the nearby Bhotekoshi River. Initial reports had a few hundred dead with a few thousand missing. As of this morning, 734 are reported dead, and tens of thousands are missing. 

The videos of this event have gone viral; they’ve been on all the major news networks this week. The floods raging down the mountain rivers look like something out of a Hollywood disaster movie: entire towns, villages swept away in an instant. Three- and four-story buildings tossed aside. The graphic videos that may not have made it through television censors have gotten to me too. Bodies mangled by the force of the water, dozens dead in the streets, of all ages. It has been tough to look away for me this week.

I bring this brief news report to you this morning with apologies; this is not often the tenor of my preaching. I usually keep things lighter, I preach about love, loving God and loving neighbor, about what we can do here and now to help our community, our families. And there have been other news stories recently, in the last year at least, that mirror this one: terrible earthquakes have hit in Venezuela in June killing thousands of people, and in Colombia earlier this month, killing hundreds and injuring thousands more. Those events were heartbreaking and tragic; they received similar levels of attention, humanitarian aid.

But I think what made this Nepal tragedy different for me this week was a feeling that… it was kind of our fault. It was kind of my fault. Again, I don’t often preach like this, I try not to preach too often on issues that have been deemed partisan or political, I try to float above those from this pulpit and let you make your own decisions based on the words of our faith, but friends, today, this one feels like it’s on us. The entire worldwide scientific community agrees that global warming, that climate change, caused by us and our consumption and our burning of fossil fuels, it has led to a rapid increase in temperature in our world. That increase in temperature is not without consequence. We may think about rising sea levels along our coastlines as the polar ice caps begin to melt, but those downriver from the Himalayan glaciers do not worry about our beaches. Nepal’s Foreign Minister, surrounded by the destruction in his country, humbly begged the world on Thursday: “We request that the global community come together to preserve the Himalayan ecosystem, to take on climate change now… this has to be a global effort.” 

Our lectionary texts this morning do not discuss climate change, clearly. The writers and the disciples could not imagine a world of industry or combustible engines. They also could not see the world the way Jesus saw it. Peter, who in last week’s reading confessed Jesus as the Messiah, who prompted Jesus to declare “on this rock I will build my church,” Peter this week gets out of line to pull his rabbi aside and rebuke him, “God forbid (that you be killed), Lord.” Jesus delivers a forceful rebuke himself, “Get behind me Satan,” get back in line. “You’re here learning from me, of something different; stop setting your mind on human things, let your mind take in the divine things I’m teaching.”

Peter, of course, still imagined that Jesus was coming as the Messiah they had hoped for, one with a sword, one who would lead the Israeli armies against Rome. Moses, in our Old Testament reading, likely had the same image of a leader for Israel, one who would go and fight Pharoah for the freedom of his people, leading them out of Egypt with armies, building a resistance against those in power, leading an insurrection, a rebellion.

But God, but Jesus, does not work that way, they are both reminded. God uses humble, tongue-tied Moses to deliver his judgment, plagues, as we’ve been reading at Evensong on Wednesday nights. Jesus, of course, turns the other cheek, suffers torture and death, Jesus loves, even unto death on the cross, and is risen, defeating death itself. N.T. Wright puts it like this: “The true Messiah does not belong in the line of warrior kings… both Peter and Moses must follow a God whose ways and thoughts were other than theirs.”

Matthew records Jesus telling his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” What does it look like to take up our cross, to lose our lives for the sake of Christ? How do we follow a God whose ways and thoughts are so different from ours? A God who calls us to love, to love God, to love our neighbor, to love our enemies? Where can we possibly begin?

Paul gives the church in Rome a good place to start, right? “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Sorry to reread that, but it’s all good.

We know what it is to follow this God, to take up our cross. We are given this charge this week, and nearly every week here at Epiphany, a charge that we have properly distilled to abundant love and universal welcome, to caring for each other, to constant invitation.

My concern today, for us and for myself, in light of tragedies like this week’s in Nepal, my concern is that we have not gone far enough. My concern is that I, that we, have put reasonable limits, qualifying boundaries on our love for our neighbor, that we have told ourselves, “Yes, of course, I’ll be kind and loving to those I encounter, on my good days at least, that’s more than most people do,” and then left it there, that we’ve said that’s what it is to be a Christian, to be a Jesus follower. But friends, let us admit to ourselves this morning that there’s very little “taking up our cross” in that. That’s simply the foundation of human decency, a glorified golden rule, perhaps; that’s not divine love.

Divine love begins there; if you’re having trouble with Paul’s charge to the Romans this morning, start there. But then divine love permeates everything else too, changing everything. I have thought a lot about Ray Diffenderffer and Mary Budde this week, about Marti and Warren Fritz too, about their passion around plastics, styrofoam, and recycling. I know many of us share that particular passion, not to only call these four out, but when our vestry retreat lunch used plastic containers and silverware, Ray and Mary in particular got on their soapboxes and preached to us about how much waste we were responsible for that day. Their love for neighbor extended to the generations that will pay the price, the villages that are currently paying the price, for the sum total of all our tiny actions. Their love for neighbor is not only kindness, it is an example of a divine love.

See, divine love, it cannot leave us comfortable. Jesus frames following him as taking up a cross, perhaps the least comfortable act there can be. Loving our neighbor extends across the world, into every single thing that we do. Are my actions loving, today? Are my interactions loving, my purchases, my driving patterns, my energy usage, my conversations, my time commitments, are they loving today? Am I following the true Messiah, this morning?

May love make us uncomfortable, this week, friends. May we truly love one another.

Amen.