Messiah Lutheran Church

10/22/2026

*A Table Big Enough for Everyone*

Over the years, my understanding of the Kingdom of God has grown and changed. I hope it has moved closer to the way Jesus actually spoke about it and lived it. The image I keep coming back to is a table, a really big, wide-open table where there is a place for everyone. Not just a chair, but a place. Not just an invitation, but a welcome.

That difference matters more than we often admit. Invited and welcomed are not the same thing.

Think back to the junior high dance. Everybody got the invitation. The flyer went up on every locker. But some kids walked through those gym doors and knew in an instant that they didn't really belong. They found a spot along the wall and waited, hoping someone would ask them to dance. And if they worked up the courage to step onto the floor on their own, the looks told them everything. "This isn't your place."

I wonder how many people have walked into our churches and felt exactly that. We said, "All are welcome." We meant it, or thought we did. But an invitation without a real welcome can be one of the loneliest experiences there is.

When our kids were growing up, I loved watching "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" with them. Fred Rogers understood welcome better than most preachers I know. In 1969, at a time when Black Americans were still being turned away from public swimming pools, Fred did something quietly radical on his show. It was a hot day in the neighborhood, and he was cooling his feet in a little plastic wading pool. Officer Clemmons, played by François Clemmons, a Black actor and singer, stopped by. Fred invited him to take off his shoes and join him. There they sat, two men, four bare feet in the same small pool of water. When they were done, Fred helped dry his friend's feet with his own towel.

He didn't give a speech. He didn't need to. Every child watching learned something about who belongs. François Clemmons later said that moment changed his life. And the scene carries an echo we shouldn't miss: a man kneeling with a towel, caring for the feet of his friend. We've seen that before, in an upper room.

That is what welcome looks like. Not just "come in," but "sit with me. There's room in the water for you." Fred ended so many episodes reminding children, "I like you just the way you are." That's not just good children's television. That's the gospel.

Empire Thinking

So why is real welcome so hard for us? I think we've fallen, often without realizing it, into what I'd call "empire thinking." Empire thinking is about power, control, and who's in and who's out. It reduces salvation to believing the right doctrines so we can get into heaven when we die. . That's a far cry from the Hebrew vision of shalom: wholeness, the healing of what's broken between us and God, between us and one another, and between us and all of creation.

Brian McLaren put this beautifully in the October 22, 2026 Daily Meditation from Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation. McLaren reflects on how his faith has changed since he started paying close attention to the historical Jesus of the Gospels. He notes that Jesus' central message wasn't a formula for getting to heaven. It was this: "The kingdom of God is at hand." And "at hand" means "here, now, within reach."

Then McLaren points out something I find stunning. The Greek word we translate as "kingdom," *basileia*, is the same word used for "empire." Jesus preached in a world dominated by Caesar's Rome, and he took the very vocabulary of empire and turned it upside down. As McLaren imagines it, Jesus is saying that Caesar's empire is just "a dirty little neighborhood within a much bigger kingdom." God's realm is larger, wider, and far more beautiful than anything Rome could imagine.

And then McLaren names the contrast plainly:

Empires kill. Jesus dies as a nonviolent witness against that violence.
Empires imprison. Jesus heals and sets people free.
Empires uproot people and force them from their homes. Jesus goes to people right where they are.
Empires build ladders of domination, with some people always on top of others. Jesus kneels down, takes a towel, and washes feet.

The tragedy, McLaren says, is that so many Christians have done the reverse. We've shrunk God into the image of a Roman emperor: a stern, distant ruler keeping score. As Lutherans, we have a name for this. Martin Luther called it a "theology of glory", our human tendency to look for God in power, success, and dominance. But Luther insisted that God is revealed in the "theology of the cross", in weakness, humility, and self-giving love. The God we meet in Jesus doesn't climb up. God comes down.

Yes, Jesus calls God "Father." But this is no Roman patriarch demanding obedience. This is the father in Luke 15 who sees his wayward son while he's still far off, runs to him, throws his arms around him, and throws a party. No lecture. No probation. Just welcome. That is grace. Pure, unearned, extravagant grace.

A Bigger Table, a Wider Circle

Saint Francis understood this kingdom in his bones. He walked away from wealth and status, the very trappings of empire, to embrace the poor and the l***r. And his welcome didn't stop with people. Francis sang of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, Brother Wind and Sister Water, even our Sister, Mother Earth. For Francis, the whole creation was family. Everything belonged.

That's the table I believe Jesus is setting. It's wide enough for the kid along the gym wall, for the neighbor who was told they didn't belong, for the immigrant family, for the one who's been wounded by the church. It's wide enough to include the earth itself, which groans and waits for healing too. Shalom is not just about my soul getting to heaven. It's about all things being made whole, here and now, because God's kingdom is at hand.

So here's the question I can't shake. If Jesus pointed beyond the small, frightened world of empire to something bigger and more beautiful, shouldn't we do the same?

Let's not just invite. Let's welcome. Let's pull up another chair, scoot over, make room. Let's take off our shoes, put our feet in the water, and say to whoever walks through the door: There's room here for you. You belong.

10/09/2026

All are invited to attend this special presentation about 2-1-1 services in Orange County. Elsa Padilla, with OC United Way will be leading on Sunday, October 11 at 9:45am in the Joy Center in between services. Grab coffee and a donut and join! ❤️

10/06/2026

Thanks to all who attended our annual Blessing of the Animals and brought their lovable pets to receive prayer and blessings. A handful of people brought photos of pets who have passed away or couldn’t attend, and they still received a blessing. This was the first year we had all dogs! Thanks to All God’s Creatures, our animal ministry, for making treat bags for our furry friends. We hold this event annually on the first Sunday of October. 🙏🐶🐾🦴❤️

10/01/2026

Don’t miss this year’s annual Blessing of the Animals on Sunday, October 4 at 11:30am on the North Lawn. The pastors are ready to bless all types of animals! 🐶🐱🐓🐍🐹🥰🙏

09/22/2026

Not long ago I ran into someone who used to worship with us at Messiah. When I told them we missed them, they got a little embarrassed. "You must think we're so bad for not coming," they said.

I don't think that, and I never have. Life got busy, a routine broke, and that's just what routines do. At Messiah, an empty seat means someone is missed, not judged.

And something wonderful has happened here. 🎉 For the first time in over forty years, Messiah is debt-free, and forty affordable homes are going up on land we held for thirty years.

Over the next five weeks we'll be sharing stories of what this congregation has quietly been doing all along: feeding people, housing people, and sitting with folks through their hardest weeks and their happiest ones.
On October 25 once again we'll celebrate together and share how we intend to be connected and to make a difference in our congregation, community, and world.

Come sit with us, Sundays at 8:30 or 10:15. ☕ Coffee and donuts in the plaza, and nothing formal about any of it.

There's a place for you. All of you. 💚

— Pastor Bob

Know someone we've been missing? Share this post or tag them below. We'd love to see their face, too.

09/16/2026

Nighttime at the Foot of the Cross

When the sun goes down, something holy happens here. The cross glows against the night sky, the world grows quiet, and a deep peace settles over this place.

You are welcome here, just as you are. Come with whatever you're carrying. Bring your joys and your sorrows, your gratitude and your grief. Bring the prayers you have words for and the ones you don't. No one here needs you to have it all figured out.

Sit for a while. Breathe. Rest in the sacred stillness. The same love that stretched out its arms on the cross holds every story remembered in this plaza, and it holds yours too.

You are not alone. You never have been. Christ's light still shines in the dark, and the darkness has not overcome it.

09/11/2026

07/04/2026

"Blessed to Be a Blessing: A Reflection for America's 250th Birthday"

Today America turns 250 years old.

It is a day to celebrate our freedom as a nation. We are not a perfect country — we never have been — but at our best we keep striving toward a more perfect union. That striving is worth celebrating.

And yet our celebration of this day must be more than barbecues and fireworks, more than political speeches and parades. Those things are good — I will enjoy them right along with you. But if that is all this day is, we have missed something. A 250th birthday invites more than a party; it invites reflection. It asks us who we have been, who we are, and who we are still becoming.

Some claim we are a Christian nation, and to suggest otherwise can sound like heresy. But it seems to me that we are something else: a beautifully diverse nation with religious freedom for all people. Yes, much of our history is rooted in Judeo-Christian values. It is also true that our history includes actions and policies far from the core message of the gospel — the message that declares every person is created in the image of a loving God, and that our deepest calling is to express our love of God through our love of neighbor.

So as we celebrate our freedom today, let us not confuse our political freedom with the freedom we have as followers of Jesus — the freedom to love others. All others.

That includes the foreigner who is here with proper documentation, and the immigrant who is here without it. It includes the neighbor whose political views differ from ours, who prays in a different manner than we pray, who speaks a different language, whose skin is a different color. On a day like this, gratitude for this 250-year-old experiment must never become an excuse to wrap the cross in the American flag, or to promote a gun-toting Jesus who blesses only some of us. The apostle Peter learned this lesson the hard way. When God opened his eyes, he opened the church to those it had shut out, because he finally understood that Jesus is Lord of all. Not some. All.
Koi hi
Where Does That Kind of Love Come From?

Here is what I have learned in more than four decades of ministry: we cannot give away what we have not received.

As Father Richard Rohr reminds us... Only people who know they are loved can pass that love along. The ones best equipped to share the boundless abundance of God are those who have first experienced that abundance in their own lives. And many of us struggle with this. We doubt, deny, and reject our own belovedness — perhaps because we did not choose it, create it, or earn it. But that is precisely what grace is. A gift we could never earn, given anyway.

And the gift is never for us alone. We are not blessed to the exclusion of others; we are blessed to be a blessing, so that through us others are drawn into the wide circle of God's generosity. This means removing the blinders that keep us from seeing the light of God shining in the face of every person we meet — and building community together, as one.

The Practice of Blessing:

I have noticed something over the years: people who know their own blessedness naturally speak blessing to others. They call forth beauty and truth in the people around them, almost without effort. And people are hungry for it. No one is ever brought to life by curses, gossip, accusation, or blame — and there is plenty of all that in our world right now. It produces only darkness. But blessing flows easily from a heart that has heard the voice calling it beloved.

Let's be honest about the darkness, too. Walk down any street in any American city and you cannot miss the loneliness, the homelessness, the addiction. And yet every one of those neighbors is yearning for a blessing. That blessing can only be given by people who have heard it themselves.

This is where gratitude becomes responsibility. If we have been loved first, we are accountable to those living on the margins — the immigrant family afraid of a knock at the door, the neighbor sleeping in a car, the person our politics has taught us to fear. Our faith calls us into a deeper relationship with our community and our world, not a retreat from it.

So celebrate today. Enjoy the barbecue, watch the fireworks, wave at the parade. Give thanks for 250 years of this fragile, remarkable experiment. But do not let the celebration end there — because the truest way to honor freedom is to use it for love. Tomorrow, go be a blessing. You are beloved, and beloved people bless.

Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

Have a great Fourth of July!!!

Pastor Bob