Some Hints of What Our Neighborhood in the Kingdom of God Could Be

Our Neighborhood in the Kingdom of God is an earthly beginning to the perfect Kingdom completed at Jesus' return.  But what does it look like in earthly terms? 

Because attempts to portray the 'ideal' Neighborhood are made in the popular culture and media.  It is all over Children's programming.  The one that set the pattern for me growing us was Sesame Street. I will confess that I am not of the "Elmo" generation and never really got the popularity of "Elmo's World" (but for some reason, I love the extended "Noodle" family).

I grew up when Mr. Hooper was the shopkeeper.  And it still brings a hollowness of heart to me in remembering how they had to share the news of Mr. Hooper's death with Big Bird.  But that was what the Neighborhood was about, people caring for one another in community.  It was done in a way that sought to protect kids growing up in a dangerous world.  Monsters weren't bad, people cooperated with each other.  Cookie Monster was my favorite.  Grover was my voice.

Not all children's programming is this way.  Most "children's" programming is not for children except to turn them into consumers.  How many shows are just there to sell the merchandise?  Even Sesame Street has its share of that.  "Tickle Me Elmo" comes to mind (and not as a fond recollection).  

It is even proper to be looking into the world for hints of the Kingdom of God?  I think it is more than proper, it is necessary.  But with discernment.  God is the Creator of all.  The good things of faith, love and grace and caring, they continue to exist in the world, all tangled up with sin and evil and greed.  

Our Neighborhood in the Kingdom of God also exists in the World.  We are not called upon to withdraw to a mountain stronghold and defend Jesus against all comers.  It is just the opposite, in the Name of Jesus, we are called to invite the world in.  It is a line that we, as a church, have sought to discern since the first disciples of Jesus, how do we live "in" the world while seeking not to be "of" the sinfulness of the world?  

The good things of God continue to exist in the world, even in the presence of sin that, if it cannot undermine them, will twist and tweak them.  We know this is the same for the Church.  The good things of God exist in the church, but even here, the presence of sin seeks to undermine and to tweak and to twist what is good.

This is God's world.  We know God is here for us.  We know God is here for the world, despite sin.  So, all around us there are hints and clues of what our Neighborhood could be, should be in our world.

Pastor Pete          

 

For the Lord's Day: Sunday, June 14, 2026 The Reading of God's Word.

https://youtu.be/mpeCLRrJrjE 

Our passages for this Sunday include Joshua 20 and Romans 6: 1-11.  As always, we share them in the KJV, the Pirate's Bible, the NRSV, and the Message.

May the hearing of God's Word provide guidance and clarity in the week ahead.

Pastor Pete

https://youtu.be/mpeCLRrJrjE

A Lord's Day Preview: Our Scriptures and Some Thoughts for Sunday, June 7, 2026

To You Who Are Beloved of our Lord Jesus Christ,                              

 Our passages for this Sunday come from Genesis 12: 1-3 and Matthew 9: 9-13.  The first is the promise God made to Abram and the second is that call that Jesus extended to Matthew:

 Genesis 12:  ¹Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ² I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Matthew 9: ⁹ As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

¹⁰ And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹² But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

          The promise in Genesis is made to Abram (even before God changed his name to Abraham).  The piece we hang our presence on is at the conclusion of verse 3, “…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  That is us, among others.

          Our passage in Matthew shows Jesus doing that work.  His work began among His people, God’s Chosen.  It is something that the leadership in Jerusalem is watching.  And then Jesus makes a point.

          “Tax collectors and sinners”, Bible-speak for ‘riff-raff’, for the unwelcome, those who have made bad life decisions, the people on the other side of the tracks, those people who, in the eyes of the Pharisees, are unworthy.

          Apparently, theirs was an early version of “See Something, Say Something”, because these are not the sort of people that Jesus ‘ought’ to be caught having dinner with.  They are sinners.  And tax collectors (a special brand of treacherous in occupied Israel).

          Jesus’ response is cutting, to say the least.  “Those who are well have no need of a physician…”  In other words, “I am not here for YOU.”  Jesus is here for those who are not well, who, in the eyes of God, are “ill” with sin.

          But Jesus is not done.  The Pharisees, the teachers of the Bible of Jesus (alongside Jesus), they would recognize Jesus’ work in fulfillment of the promise to Abram.  So they’d recognize Jesus’ second cut, one that runs deeper. “Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”

          It is from Hosea, the prophet who calls “BS” on the practices of ancient Israel when they turned away from God for their own benefit.  The second part of the verse in Hosea goes, “(For I desire)…the knowledge of God rather than burnt sacrifices.”

          Israel, blessed by God and in a good economic situation in the time of Hosea, has gotten very good at following the letter of the law for their own desire and benefit.  Because they forgot they needed God, the Giver of all. They’d forgotten the spirit of that law, the knowledge of God.  What is the knowledge of God?  Most basically, that God is love.

          Jesus has not come to call the righteous, but the sinner.  In speaking to the Pharisees, Jesus is not telling them something new, but reminding them.  They are the ‘righteous’ and they should know better.  More than knowing better, as leaders of the people, as those who claim to be scholars of the bible they share with Jesus, they should be doing this work.  Most especially INSTEAD of critiquing Jesus for it.

          While this will not endear Jesus to the leadership of the people, it is the people, not their leadership, that Jesus has come to serve.

 

Pastor Pete      

Our Scripture Lessons Read in Anticipation of Sunday, June 7, 2026

https://youtu.be/mH4LMWQA0nQ

 This week, we share Genesis 12: 1-3 and Matthew 9: 9-13 in the KJV, the Pirate Bible, the NRSV, and the Message.  

We begin at the promise made to Abram and how Jesus took that promise and made it real.

Pastor Pete

https://youtu.be/mH4LMWQA0nQ

Can We Still Doubt in the Face of The Great Commission?

 To You Who Are Beloved of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

 This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, and our passage is Matthew 28: 16-20, the Great Commission.  It is here where the language of the Trinity is drawn together most clearly:

 ¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

             For all the depth of purpose included in the Great Commission, three little words always pop at me, from verse 17, “but some doubted”.  The simplest explanation (to me) is that this is a nod to the Gospel of John, where the story of the Doubter, Thomas, is related. 

So why insert this little hiccup in the grand finale of the Gospel of Matthew?  Is it simply a nod, an homage, or is it something else?

Is it a reminder?  Is it a reminder that, as the grand sweeping vision is laid out by Jesus in these few verses, that we are still human?  And it is a grand, sweeping vision. 

 Go and make disciples of ALL nations.

Baptize them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!!

          Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you!!

And, you are not alone, for I am with you always, to the end…

          But, what if it gets hard?  What if I don’t know what I am doing?  I got love and I got faithfulness but…  What if the going gets tough?  Because it does.  Here’s an excerpt from Paul’s Resume of Suffering from 2 Corinthians 11:24-25: “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods.  Once I was stoned...”  (I have never heard this called a Resume of Suffering but it powerfully fits).

          So, maybe these three little words are included as more than a nod or an homage.  Maybe they are included as an “Easter egg”, like in the movies.  In the movies, an ‘Easter egg’ is a reference to another movie or scene or something that the director is honoring.  One of my favorites is in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where R2D2 and C3PO from Star Wars are hieroglyphics in the underground temple in Egypt.

          So, maybe, when someone is living into the Great Commission and things have gotten tough, when there are serious bumps in the road, nothing seems to be going right, disappointment and doubt have settled in…  Remember this Easter egg.  It takes us to the Supreme Doubter.  And it walks us through how Jesus worked with him.

          It is a visual of Easter.  Jesus’ resurrection body, wounds healed BUT present.  Jesus present and transformed.  Jesus up from the grave, in fulfillment of all the promises made about grace and salvation and forgiveness and eternity.  But, more profoundly, THE reminder that even death was overcome by our Lord.  All to remind poor Thomas to believe. 

          The work is getting hard?  The Great Commission feels more like a Great Weight around the neck?  Go back to the Doubter, who had to see and touch to confess, “My Lord and My God!”

          Read again what Jesus said to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen Me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

          That’s us.  Reminded of where the blessings truly come from.  Where the strength truly comes from.  Where the renewal truly comes from.  In the Triune God.

          God the Father and Creator, who is not just THE power in the Universe, but THE Maker of the Universe.  In Jesus Christ who did the work we are not able to, in perfect obedience, dying and rising again to fulfill the promise of a gift given to us all.  In the Holy Spirit, who is Jesus in our hearts.  As Jesus says to conclude the Commission, “and I am with you, till the end of the age.”

 

Pastor Pete

May 31, 2026 Scripture Lesson: Matthew 28: 16-20

https://youtu.be/IHcYC2VMdqA 

May 31, 2026 is Trinity Sunday on the Church Calendar and is our monthly Healing Service at First Presbyterian Church of Merchantville.  Our Scripture Lesson is the Great Commission from the very end of Matthew.  It is the command of Jesus to go out into the world and, by making disciples of all peoples, they bring God's healing to all peoples.

Pastor Pete

https://youtu.be/IHcYC2VMdqA

A Parable of Change Via Fusion Cuisine (and Pizza)

             I am not opposed to Fusion Cuisine (the bringing together of flavors of different cooking traditions or styles) but neither am I what one might call a “devotee”.  At the risk of appearing a snob, Fusion that is especially underwhelming brings with it the appearance of Confusion Cuisine (I suppose, re-reading that, there is no risk of appearing like a snob; I have fully embraced the Snob). 

I do not entirely reject Fusion Cuisine.  At the risk of losing my readers (who is the snob now?), I confess that I actually like pineapple and ham on a pizza.  It has a summer vibe.

            And, having moved to South Jersey, in the local environs of Philadelphia, I have begun to penetrate the fog of Confusion that is…Cheesesteak Pizza.  Still not in the Kitchen of my flavor preferences, but I am moving from the Confusion to the Fusion.  Sorry, cannot promise more at this point.

So, Fusion Cuisine and Confusion Cuisine, but also there is something further out in the fog of foodie-ism, the Thoroughly Confusing Cuisine.  In this instance, it is the “fusing”, no, the mash-up of Pizza and General Tso’s Chicken.  Let me be clear, Pizza is a primary go-to for my family when it comes to Italian takeout.  General Tso’s Chicken is my personal Chinese takeout preference-especially with the spiced broccoli, but…General Tso’s Chicken Pizza.  No.  Well…No.  I do not even know how one actually cooks the component elements in the same kitchen. 

Don’t get it, I just don’t.  Not even going to give it a chance.  No, nope, nuh uh.  This mashup is not Confusion Cuisine but a clear example of Thoroughly Confusing Cuisine.  It is a shock to my culinary sensibilities.  There are culinary traditions that are sacrosanct and to be preserved of both the Chinese Restaurant and the Italian Restaurant.

I was in the midst of adding this being “an affront” as well as a shock to my culinary sensibilities when a little voice went off in my head, replaying a moment when I confessed appreciation of ham and pineapple pizza.  It goes something like, “just because you don’t like it…”  Which triggered another internal reaction, continuing morality work on my part to identify when I don’t like something and when that is confused with when I won’t like something. 

While I might never be accused of being a sensitive, New Age guy, I certainly DO NOT want to be a knuckle-walking socio-Cro-Magnon throwback, grunting “me no like” as though I were pronouncing eternal damnation on General Tso’s Chicken Pizza.  Rule of life and love, it is okay not to like things, it is unloving to demand others not like them too. 

For example, Poutine, the sub-national Provincial artery hardening, heart clogging, deliciously joyful Dish, a combination of French fries (Quebec, thus French…ish?  But NOT Freedom fries) and gravy and cheese curds.  YES, curds of cheese!!  Sacrosanct…well, till one sins.

And if one is going to sin, one ought to sin boldly.  So, brisket in the poutine…  Wow…  Now, its not a mashup like that other one mentioned above  (it is emotionally painful to type).  There is Canadian commonality.  Poutine from Quebec, beef from the Prairies…Canadian, divided by language, but there is hope…  And its more of an add-on than a mashup.  There is the additional commonality of gravy… (To be completely honest, this is a very clear example of the process called ‘rationalization’, coming up with reasons why something is right).

And Canada, like our United States, has fusion built into the very melting pot of multiculturalism that makes us great.

So…add-ons work.  A swap can work as well.  Because of an extended period of my life with a diet that involved too much poutine and poutine adjacent choices and too much brisket and red meat in general, I now cook in the realm of the Mediterranean diet to counteract those other life and culinary choices.  Doing so now means I can still enjoy the Poutine lifestyle, selectively and in moderation.

Back to add-ons…  I was working up a recipe of a Mediterranean inspired bean salad, one that calls for balsamic vinegar to provide a sweet tang to the process.  It was in this process that I came upon two levels of self-awareness that I was not previously conscious of.  The first is that I have flavor preferences in regards to vinegar (Yes, I am as surprised as you are!).  The second is that I have enough taste-knowledge to successfully introduce rice vinegar as a swap in the recipe that made it so much better.  It tasted better, and I am not sure I have ever described it this way, it was a refreshing bean salad.

You may have noticed that this began as a rant, maybe even a ‘tear’ (as in tearing paper in half, not a crying jag; oh I love English).  I have many of those, amusing in my own mind.  They usually run their course and I move on.  But notice that this is in the Church blog of a pastor.  Somewhere along the way, the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, whose coming we celebrated this past Pentecost Sunday, God be praised for the gift of the Holy Spirit, this still, small voice whispered at me.

With a very, very daring offer.  "Pastor", said the still, small voice, "Maybe this is not a rant about food so much as a (…and I have never thought of my writing in this way…) a parable in the “Jesus-style”."

A parable in the Jesus-style is one that takes common themes of the popular and generally understood culture to make a greater point of faith and love. It DOES NOT presume some particular insight into the wisdom and love of Jesus Christ beyond that of a faithful human.

For this ‘parable’, use what I know and love, what our culture knows, food choices and takeout options, consider these in the life of where the church is.  Because we know our church has to change.  Not Jesus, because Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, but the ways we’ve shared His message, those ways are always open to new possibilities.  So…mash things up?  

The Industry exists.  Its called the Church Growth Industry, a whole economic culture of books and programs and mentors and consultants and ‘proven ways’ and ‘guaranteed results’ that are advertised in ways that are practically indistinguishable from how the rest of the capitalist economy advertises things to sell, improve, change, and perfect us.  These will outline ingredients and recipes and formulas and what to do and what not to do.  There is a near infinite diversity in infinite combination of ‘what works’ today to make the church grow.

 It feels like the soft drink industry.  Gotta have the right recipe (Coke learned that the hard way) to sell that sugary, caffeinated tooth-rotting stuff.  Get the right formula, and you too can have a tasty church…

And these Church Growth strategies are so often mash-ups of what has come before.  Fusion Theology, well, more Confusion Theology, even Thoroughly Confused Theology, like jamming together General Tso’s Chicken and Pizza.  Trash tradition and start again…

Then there is our beloved First Presbyterian Church of Merchantville.  We have not adopted a ‘proven Church Growth’ strategy.  We have not mashed up that which we do into something else.  Here is a specific example.  We’ve done one very deliberate add-on, that of our Family Service on Third Sundays.  We’ve swapped some ingredients, changing the sermon style and presentation for a younger audience.  But it is still recognizable as worship, a tastier worship in my opinion. 

We did not just take a couple of completely distinct traditions and jam them together and call it pizza…er…worship. 

And who knows, maybe along the way we will make choices that will trigger a response of “I don’t get it.”  One of the great blessings of this congregation is your openness to things of the faith.  I see such a reaction as “I don’t get it, but I will seek to understand what went into the decision, what makes it work, potentially.”  There is the risk of love in that reaction.  And it is not “I won’t get it, because I ‘know’ this is how it ought (or ought not) to be done”.

This is the Pentecost thing again.  God indwells us as the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit does not simply speak ‘authoritatively’ through one of us (CERTAINLY not the minister), but speaks lovingly through all of us.  There’s a Pizza that God wants us to be.  There is a Church that God wants us to be.  We are in an amazing church for our congregation right now.  Imagine how God will make this an amazing church for everyone?

            Yes, this from the Pastor who owns his enjoyment of pineapple and ham on pizza.  And poutine with brisket (OMG that was so good!).  Despite that, in John 1, Philip invites Nathanael to “Come and see” Jesus.  So...Come and eat, here in this Church of Jesus.  
  
 Pastor Pete