06/07/2026
“Being a Blessing”
SERMON prepared for Lake Como Community of Hope, June 7,2026
SCRIPTURE: Genesis 12:1-9; Matthew 9:9-13; 18-26
Introduction: We are in the second half of the church year. After following Jesus’ life from birth to ministry to crucifixion to resurrection, we now explore what this means to us. What is God doing with the whole Bible story, from creation to our own lives as God’s people?
First Reading
Need: To see that we are God’s people, living and sharing the blessing that rested on Abraham.
News: Abraham, still known by his birth name of Abram, is an old man. Now God calls him to leave his family, his homeland, his home, and go to a place that God will show him. Abram agrees and takes his relatives on the journey to Canaan, which will be the homeland of his descendants. God makes a powerful promise. Abram, who still has no children, will be the ancestor of a great nation, blessed by God. All who bless Abram will share in this promise, and in the end all the families of the earth will be blessed.
Response: We live a long time after Abram/Abraham, and far away from the Holy Land. God’s call and blessing have continued through the whole history of the Old Testament, through the story of Jesus and his followers, and to our own time and place. God’s call, through Abraham and Jesus, lives for us and for the whole world. We too are to love God, to serve the world that God loves, and to share and to be God’s blessing for all.
Second Reading
Need: To see how Jesus is a blessing to all kinds of people.
News: Jesus is the living presence of God’s blessing, healing, and love. He comes upon a tax collector named Matthew, who was despised by most people and considered a sinner. Matthew worked for the Romans who occupied Israel, and for the government that collaborated with Rome. Matthew followed Jesus and invited him to eat at Matthew’s house. The table filled with other “tax collectors and sinners,” and people wondered why a righteous man like Jesus would eat with them. Jesus carries out God’s call to be a blessing to all kinds of people. “Look,” he says, “If you are well, you don’t need to call a healer. I am here to call sinners, not the righteous.”
As Jesus’ followers, we are to share God’s blessing with all kinds of people, as we see Jesus doing here. Jesus calls Matthew away from a sinful life and molds him into a disciple. A ruler comes, just like a Roman officer in another story, telling Jesus that his little girl just died and asking Jesus to lay a hand of life upon her. In both cases Jesus is a blessing and a healer for men that many would consider sinners. As they walk to the leader’s home, a sick woman touches Jesus and is healed. As God said to Abraham, we are to be a blessing to all kinds of people, all over the world.
CONCLUSION
Some time ago I knew an Air Force veteran, Bill K., who was a fighter pilot in Vietnam. He told us of the people he had killed, shooting down enemy fighters and machine-gunning columns of soldiers on the trails. He saw countless American and Vietnamese soldiers die from enemy attacks. Bill K felt the pain of war and of human sinfulness.
Bill K one day encountered a God who called him to a new life. Flying back from a mission, Bill K felt God by his side. A deep painful grief pierced him. It was God’s pain as God’s beloved children, all fellow human beings, killed one another.
Bill K came home from Vietnam and began to read Scripture. He saw stories like ours today, of people meditating and encountering God, even as God had sat by Bill in the cockpit.
Bill K knew that he had been called to a new life. He began to spend half his time in the woods with his dog, opening himself in silence to God’s presence and will. Then he became a pastoral assistant to an inner-city church in Chicago, wandering the streets to tell people that God and God’s people loved them. He carried food, money, helpful references, and an invitation from and to the church to all he met. His dog became his co-minister, each being a face of the God who had mourned in the cockpit long ago and far away. God now worked through Bill to comfort and to heal the suffering people of a vast city.
God calls us all to the Table, to be healed, and forgiven, and renewed. God sends us from the Table to share with the world God’s blessing through Abraham and Jesus.
