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God Will Sustain You

By Jared Warner

Willow Creek Friends Church

January 18, 2026

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Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili

1 Corinthians 1:1–9 (ESV)

¹ Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, ² To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: ³ Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, ⁵ that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— ⁶ even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— ⁷ so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁸ who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

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What is our purpose? Why are we here?

These questions often ring in my mind, and I am sure they ring in yours also at times. All too often our existence seems to get placed under the weight of the world, and we begin to question what the point really is. This is why the first query of our faith and practices asks, “Do you earnestly seek to maintain a life in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you practice the daily reading of the Scriptures in your families, giving time for waiting upon the Lord? Are you watchful not to be unduly absorbed by temporal affairs? Are you careful to avoid places and activities inconsistent with a Christian character”

I get unduly absorbed. I have admitted on many occasions that I am a news addict. This began when I was in Junior High School and it has persisted throughout my life. I grew up on the farm, and when you work on a farm you spend a lot of long hours alone in a tractor or working in a pasture. In the days before smart phones and wireless internet, before unlimited access to YouTube, all you had to bring entertainment while working was the radio. But the radio gets monotonous. I got to the point I could tell the time based on which song was playing on the radio because they would play the same playlist over and over every single day, I could quote the ads word for word in the voice of the reader, and I could basically tell the joke the DJ would say after a song before the DJ said it. I grew to despise our radio stations, and if you play Ace of Bass around me I might turn into the Incredible Hulk. We had very few options in the middle of nowhere though. I could tune in maybe three stations, one played country, one played pop, and the other was the public broadcaster that often played classical music.

What does someone in my position do? Well you flip the radio to the AM setting and see what you can find. I grew to love hockey because I would often hear a hockey game playing on a random AM station, sometimes I could get Chicago, often St Louis, but usually Dallas Stars. But during the day, there was news radio. I loved the news radio stations because at least it was not the same thing every single day. It was funny, interesting, informative, and it kept drawing you back each day because what if you would miss something important.

As I became an adult, my jobs would often lend themselves to similar themes. I worked in lawn care, going around treating lawns and making them look exceptional, again alone in a truck listening to the radio. I worked in landscaping, and since I had chemical application licensing I often found myself working alone in a truck. I found that as I continued to do this, I was getting angrier and angrier about things. And often I was only getting one side of the issue because I was only listening to one station. And rarely did I question things.

Then the call to ministry began to take hold of my attention. I switched the channel away from the news, or more accurately commentary on the news, and I began to listen to Christian radio more. At first I would listen to the music channel but quickly found that the music channel played the same playlist like every music station, so I began to listen to sermons and Christian oriented news. I eventually became a pastor and I continued this practice, and I found myself back in the same cycle. I was getting absorbed into the news once again. But this time I was hearing the news in contrast with scripture, and I was listening to the news alongside sermons. And I found myself in a dilemma. What I was hearing said in scripture and what I was hearing in the sermons and on the news often did not synchronize. I was being told to believe certain things in the sermons but the scriptures they were using were often taken out of context and in many cases the meaning was being twisted.

I listened to these teachers, these news broadcasters, these leaders I once respected say one thing and then over the course of years, when their party was in power they said the opposite. That is when I realized I had a problem. I was in the process of what is now called deconstruction. The faith I thought I had, the faith I thought I was taught, and the faith I was currently listening to was not meshing with the words I was reading in scripture and the experience I was observing in life.

What was I to do? I was a pastor. A leader within the church? Do I leave, or was there something to stay for?

I do not have all the answers. I am not the type of person that will try to debate with you and convince you that I am right, but I do have a tendency to argue. I am a news junkie, and I am a nerd so I read a lot. And at times I am like a pressure cooker and the valve just has to let out some steam. But as I went about my personal deconstruction I asked questions. What is the point? Why are we here? What is our purpose? This lead me to places I never imagined. Because I began to listen to some of the questions that people asked not to find an answer to win an argument, but instead I began to weigh the question with contemplation and prayer. The big culture war questions, proof of scripture questions, theology questions. I used them as places to pray instead of debate.

Paul wrote to the church in Corinth and in the beginning of his letter he says some powerful things. He introduces his letter as he usually does, “Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our bother Sosthenes. (sOs thAEnAEs)” If you look at most of Paul’s writings, he writes the letter in community. He usually is writing with someone else, in conversation with them. In this case he is conversing with Sosthenes. We do not know a great deal about this man. When I looked him up in my study, all I found was that he wass possibly the synagogue ruler that was beaten by Gentiles in Corinth, which can be found in Acts 18. Unfortunately that is all we can say, it might be that man. That is the problem with most scholarly activities. We cannot prove much of anything for certain, with any degree of accuracy.

That is the weakness of the discipline of Apologetics. What can we prove about faith? We just went through the season of Christmas where we celebrate the birth of Jesus. The problem is we cannot prove Jesus was born. I know the gasp you might have. We cannot prove it because we do not have multiple sources apart from scripture. Jesus does not have a birth certificate that we can find in the archives of Bethlehem. But we can provide greater proof that Jesus died. We can prove someone died but cannot prove they were born makes little sense I know. That is the limitations we face. But there is something more. We have community. Paul is writing with Sosthenes. If they questioned Paul, they could ask Sosthenes, and if they questioned them both, well Paul has a long list of others that he is also writing with in his other letters. There is a community of people living together, and they are saying similar thing. People can be wrong, but within a group, as you listen to multiple stories you can usually determine if this is or is not something that is believed to be true.

That is why I do not discredit tradition. I know that there are times where tradition and mythology can be fantasy but often there is truth within the story that is more important than facts. Did St Francis really preach to the animals? Who know but what is the truth? Compassion and empathy. Francis loved creation so much that he shared the gospel even to the birds.

Paul does not limit his community to merely Sosthenes. He is writing, “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

We often overlook these greetings, at least I do. I find them to be a bit flamboyant, and although I do not use plain speech as many of my ancestors did, I use simple speech. And Paul is wordy. But in this greeting he is telling us that this letter does not only apply to the people of Corinth it is for everyone that is called to be saints with all those who in every place call upon the name of Jesus. He is their Lord and ours.

God is for all people. This was what I hope we got out of last week’s message. God is and has always been for all people. Yet he chose to reveal his wisdom through one group or nation. It was through that group that God would give his teachings or his commandments, and it was ultimately through that group he would come in the flesh to live among mankind. Does this mean that the people of Israel are saved through their heritage? No, they like everyone else must become saints along with everyone else. We all must believe and call upon the name of the Lord.

This was part of my struggle with faith. I heard a lot of sermons that called groups of people the spawn of Satan. I heard a lot of political commentary saying that one side of the other was anti-Christ. I heard a lot, and then I knew people too. I knew people that were among the despised group that had greater faith than I did. And I wondered how this could be. Just so you know preachers on AM radio can be very interesting, in an off the wall sort of way.

“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” We need to accept them at their word. We need to recognize that although we might be in very different places, if they claim Christ they are together with us. We are the church.

This means something. It means that although I struggle with many people, I need to remember that they also are loved by God. They too are children of the same Lord. And if they are of the same Lord we need to listen to them.

This is tricky. I mentioned that I listened to a lot of different voices. I heard many sermons on that AM radio. Many of the things said were twisted to such a degree it is hard to believe we worship the same God. And that is the point Paul is making. We need to listen before we speak, and offer grace and peace. The same grace and peace our Lord offers us, because I might be the one that is mistaken.

Paul continues by saying. “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge.”

Does this mean that I know everything? Nope. Does it mean you know everything? Again no. What does he mean? God gives us grace, and when we come together in mutual care, when we come together in humility and submission to each other and with God, God will grant us wisdom and knowledge for what is needed in that moment. This is the point of the Quaker Meeting for Business. We do not vote in our sessions of business, instead we wait for the Spirit of God to move us to a solution. It can be a slow process. It can be a drawn out process, and at times it seems pointless. But I have watched it work.

I have sat on various boards and participated in countless committee meetings, I have listened to many passionate people, and there are many times where those passionate words are listened to, and later we find that by listening to those words, we are in a worse position than we were previously. There there are times where those passionate voices were quieted by a lone voice that asked a question no one was considering. Because that question was asked, the meeting had an obligation to reconsider, to still their voices and to seek a different path forward.

When we come together without the power structures of this world, and come instead as a community of equals. When we submit to each other and seek what benefits the entire community instead of what is right from our perspective. It is in that moment we are able to hear the wisdom. It is in that place where we can be enriched with the light of God. It is in that moment we are able to use the gifts we already have available to us to accomplish the things we once thought were beyond reason.

There is a vulnerability in that manner of thinking. There are times where we must step back. There are times where we have to admit that my position is lacking. There are times where we must concede and compromise. And in our cultural understanding that is scary. It is scary because we are approaching things as individuals or a dominate majority, instead of a community. It is scary because we are required to give the person we might not agree with the same dignity as we would those on our side. But there is a promise within that process.

“As you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

As you wait revelation comes. But from what do we test this revelation? We test it against what we already know. This is why the Query begins with, “Do you earnestly seek to maintain a life in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you practice the daily reading of the Scriptures with you families, giving time for waiting upon the Lord?” We are to sit with scripture, read the words within the pages of the book, and as we read those sacred words we are to let them flow deep within us. And as those words flow through us, we begin to ask the questions we are wrestling with at this moment. We do this as individuals, as families, and as a Meeting. We let the wisdom of scripture flow, and guide us through the questions that cause us to pause.

And we then look at the world around us. How is the fullness of our fellowship with Christ, and our contemplation of Scripture leading us to interact with the world around us?

I would like to use just a simple example. We all realize that our Meeting is multilingual. Several years ago that could have presented a problem. It is not that we do not love and respect all people, it is that we were not prepared as a meeting. What were we supposed to do? What does the wisdom of God tell us to do?

I am happy to say, that this was not a very difficult problem. Even though many among us are just as opinionated as I, when it comes down to the people with us we are of one spirit. We love the ones that God brings to us, and we do all we can to encourage them in their faith. Our diversity of saints makes this Meeting, it makes us recognize the fullness of the Gospel. It allows us to appreciate the vastness of God’s grace all the more. We would not be who we are without everyone here, because we are a community with each other. And the grace of God will sustain us through our trials, if we are willing to wait for his revealing and listen to his Spirit speak through our own souls and those around us.

That is wonderful. It is amazing. But how does this help us everywhere else?

How do I encourage the faith of a friend? How do I handle the illness of a loved one? How do I deal with the doubts I have within my own life? What do I do when I question the very existence of God?

Where is our focus? Are we focused on the problem, are we being unduly absorbed in the problem to the point we are distracted from all else? That is why I confess this morning. I am unduly absorbed at times. I argue on facebook, when I should be sleeping, praying, reading or doing something productive. I will listen to the news because I want to know what is going on in the world. I am concerned with what is happening in Ukraine. I am concerned with what is happening to our northern neighbors. I am concerned with what happens in South America, and in Africa. I am concerned. But often that concern distracts me from the reality that we are here now at this time and place for a purpose. God is calling us to participate in his kingdom right here and for all eternity. Am I willing to submit? Am I willing to lay myself aside and give what I have mind, body, soul and spirit to the God that loves me and the community of saints together here and in every place?

I can become distracted. I am distracted. But God will sustain us. He will provide a way forward if we will only wait on him. And he will show us how to offer Grace and peace to those around us just as He have offered it to us in our Lord Jesus Christ.

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God Shows No Partiality

By Jared Warner

Willow Creek Friends Church

January 11, 2026

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Click to read in Swahili

Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili

Acts 10:34–43 (ESV)

34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), 37 you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. 43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

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We have moved away from the season of Christmas and into the season of Epiphany. This season is one we do not think much about it is situated between the much more famous Christmas and the forty days of fasting we find during Lent, as we move toward Easter. But there is significance to this season. It is the season of revelation. It celebrates the baptism of Jesus, where the Spirit descends upon Jesus, and a voice says from the heavens, “This is my son, in whom I am well pleased.” There are skeptics that will say that the Trinity is not found in scripture, and they are right the word is not found, but there are instances like at the baptism of Jesus where all three persons are present at one moment.

This season does not only focus on the baptism of Jesus though. It also looks at a couple of other revelatory moments. According to the Hebrew teachings on hygiene, a woman is required to wait a certain amount of time before she can reenter society. During this period of time she is regarded as unclean. We often equate the term unclean with sinfulness, but it is not a sin to bear a child. It is far from sinful. What makes this process unclean is that it is not always easy, many bodily fluids are released and it is for a lack of a better description, gross. But even the grossness of birth does not make someone unclean, what makes them unclean is that the person is losing those fluids. The life force, as they might regard it, is being drained away as blood leaves the body. When the life force is draining, death is near.

The unclean status is not sin, but the presences of potential death. That is why those that are unclean cannot enter the presence of God, because death cannot exist in the presence of life. And how can we make a judgment on this? We observe. The reproductive process expels fluids of life, those that engage are unclean. Those with leprosy have an observable skin condition that often has discharge, they are unclean. Those that have been wounded and are bleeding are unclean and those that assist them are also unclean, not because it is a sin to help those in need, but we are in the presence of potential death.

The teaching surrounding childbirth stated that women were considered unclean for a period of time following birth. The bearer of life, being considered unclean is almost strange, unless you realize birth, and the few weeks following birth are when women face the greatest amount of potential health complications. They are literally on a razor’s edge between life and death. They are unclean because death is lurching nearby. But after the prescribed period of time, the women are no longer considered unclean. They bath themselves, and they go with their husband to the temple and they present sacrifices and offerings to God. Epiphany also celebrates this time within the life of the Holy Family, because it was at the temple during the time of worship and celebration of the birth of Jesus, that Simeon and Anna came and spoke prophecies and worshiped Jesus as their long awaited Messiah.

Then there is a third celebration that occurs around Epiphany, that is when the Magi from the East come to pay homage to the newly born king of the Jews. They left their land following the star. This star is something of scholarly debate, was it a comet, a super nova, was it a unique configuration of the various pagan zodiacs? We unfortunately do not know for sure what those magi saw. What we do know is that they were early astronomers. They watched and studied the paths of the starts. And as they watched the stars they learned something of the laws of nature, that govern the physics of life. They were religious and scholarly men likely from the land of Persia. And when we look at the Old Testament, we would find that Daniel once walked among the magi in the exile.

These magi knew the teachings of Daniel, and that teaching was carried forward into the understanding of these pagan priests, generations after Daniel’s death. And when they observed some celestial abnormality, their attention was drawn to Israel. And they left their home, so that they could pay their respects to this newly born king.

We often do not think that deeply about the magi, or the wise men. They are often just a minor part of the overall narrative, and we include them in the story because they came bearing gifts. Gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. We remember the wise men not because they were wise but because they had gifts, we like gifts.

Their presence in this story is important. It shows us that there was something from the very beginning that God was doing to bring those outside Israel, into the story. It shows us that the salvation, the lordship, and dominion of God reaches beyond our walls, beyond our culture, and even beyond our religion to reach out to the people throughout the entire world.

We often miss this in the narrative of scripture. We often look at Israel as being the chosen people, and that the Gentile races are brought into that promise through adoption. This is not completely wrong. It is also not completely correct. If we are to believe that all humans emerged from two ancient parents, Adam and Eve, then the promise given to Eve applies to off of her offspring. If we are to believe that all of creation was engulfed by the flood during the days of Noah, then the promise given to Noah and his sons and daughter-in-laws apply to all humanity. These are the teachings of the Hebrew scriptures. They include all people, not just one branch of the human race. It is only during the third fall of humanity that things begin to take a different turn. There was a people that became dominate within the cultures of men. They build a great city, they had wealth and power over their adversaries. They were the world’s superpower. And within this nation of people, they decided that they were so advance, and powerful that they should be equal to or at least have a place at the table among the divine council. So they built a tower. They built a mountain that would reach up into the heavens so that they could take a seat among the gods. This angered God, it angered God for a variety of reasons, but the primary reason was that this nation was arrogant. They thought in their minds that everything they did was by divine right. That they were basically gods blessing the earth. At that moment God began to act, Deuteronomy says that God confused the languages, and divided the people of the earth among the sons of God, and that God had kept Israel as his portion.

The interesting thing about this story is that Abraham had not yet been called to follow God. Isaac had yet to even become a glimmer in the eyes of his father’s mind. And Esau and Jacob were still nearly two hundred years away from existence. God gave all the people of the world to the sons of god, or lessor spiritual beings, he gave these beings everything except for one man and one woman. A man and a woman that had no future, not heritage, and no inheritance. And God called out to that man, urging him to follow him and through him he would make a great nation. A nations’ whose offspring would out number the grains of sand, and would be greater than the stars in the heavens. And they would become the light to the nations.

Was Israel chosen, yes. They were chosen not because they were greater than all other people on the earth. They were chosen because they were nothing without God. But within that same promise to Abraham, there is something profound. God chose Israel to be his portion, but Israel had a purpose, it was through them that God’s wisdom, his light, would return to all the nations.

The interesting thing is this concept of light, and that God told Abraham that his offspring would be like the stars, which illuminate the darkness. Light is a metaphor for wisdom. This is why every cartoon we watched as children put a light bulb above the heads of the characters that have great ideas. This is why the era of history surrounding our nation’s foundation was called the Enlightenment. We believed that we had greater wisdom, greater understanding that would take out out of the dark ages into the light of wisdom. God said that Israel would be the light to the nations. That his commandments, his teachings would pass through Israel and be established throughout the entire world.

I know that many of us might not believe it, but this is happening. The human rights initiatives of the past century have made the world we live in today better than any other period of history. That does not mean that everything is good, it is clear that there is much to improve in that area. But overall world poverty is down. More people have access to medical facilities than ever before. More people have access to education. Much of this improvement has come because people believed that no matter who you were you had dignity as a human being. Where does this concept of human dignity come from? Did it come from Egypt? Persia? No, it comes from the Hebrew Scriptures, that humanity is created in the image of God, and that we should not bear that name in vain.

But like with most things, we justify things. The wise men were told by the King of the Jews to come tell him where to find the baby so he too could pay him due honor. They saw through the veiled threat to the child’s life. They saw through the threat, because they were warned in a dream. Sure they were told but they were wise enough to recognize that God had spoken and they listened. Herod then justified in his own mind that it he had every right to go into Bethlehem and kill every male child under the age of two years old, because he had the mandate of power. What threat did a two year old child pose to an elderly king? This is part of the season of Epiphany. Or the Revelation. It has been revealed to us that as humans we have a responsibility to look beyond the surface, and to recognize the selfish justifications of this world. We have a responsibility to reflect the light that is shown around us, once we have been enlightened.

“So Peter opened his mouth and said: ‘Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.’”

Peter like so many of us lived within a culture that had prejudices. He grew up thinking that the people of Samaria were dogs. He grew up in a culture that would complain under their breath about the occupation of the land of Israel, while willingly accepting the coins they used within their economy. He justified his prejudices based on his interpretation of the teachings of scripture, or on his own feelings, He was just like each of us can be, a hypocrite. But God came to him on the roof of a house while he in prayer. And during that moment of visitation, God revealed something profound.

Peter was hungry while he was on the roof in prayer, and he fell into a trance. He saw the heavens open and a great sheet descended to the earth. It was like a giant table cloth being lowered from heaven and on that table were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds, and a voiced said to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” Peter in his self-righteousness said to the voice, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”

This happened three times and then the trance was broken. There are things in this world we find to be common and unclean. We have our own justification for this. We might even have the power of scripture or of law to back us up, but there is something that goes beyond that, the wisdom of God.

Why did God command, or teach that the Hebrew people abstain from certain foods? We may never know for certain, but there are several theories. One theory in regard to pork, is that pork is not a value added animal. It has basically only one use. You eat the meat. The hide of a pig was not well suited for clothing, the milk produced by the females of the species was not in abundance enough to justify the production of cheese. So this animal had only one purpose, it existed only to eat and be eaten. Where as sheep produce wool as well as milk and meat. Cattle also provide additional economic returns. But pork although tasty, only has one purpose. This is not good in establishing a sustainable society, it is a society of subsistence not abundance. Not to mention pigs in large numbers ruin the land.

Another theory deals primarily with health. The animals regarded as unclean often have some aspect of their biology that would make them unsafe to eat without extra precautions. As a child I would often be encouraged to hunt rabbits with my pellet gun, because the rabbits would eat the garden, but we rarely ate the rabbits. There was a reason for this. If you do not clean a rabbit properly it can make you sick. And if you do not cook it properly it can make you sick. The vast majority of the rabbits I hunted would be given to the cats and dogs living on our farm. And according to scripture a rabbit is considered an unclean animal. But notice I said the vast majority we did not eat. This rightfully implies that I have eaten rabbit, and the meat when raised properly can be just as nutritious as any protein source. But we need to be careful. The same can be applied to almost every animal mentioned in scripture.

My personal observation about the unclean animals in scripture is their diet. The vast majority of the animals considered unclean, eat meat. I think that is significant, especially when you consider protein based diseases. When animals are fed proteins that their bodies cannot fully digest, there can be a build up of malformed proteins called prions, that the bodies cannot expel. This can cause the disease that often scare the people of Europe called Mad Cow Disease. These prions can become more abundant within animals that eat higher meat protein based diets. It may not affect them but the could pose a greater risk to us.

Now that I am completely off topic, Peter, was given a vision where all of these animals were on the table available to eat. He had his reasons for avoiding their consumption, culturally, religiously, and preferentially. Yet God did not congratulate him on his obedience to the law or his personal piety, instead God called him out saying, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

This perplexed Peter. I shook him to the very core of who he was, it challenged his identity and his ideologies. God had always been the God of Israel. He had given them the law, and they had tried their best to follow it. Yet now God is seemingly changing his mind.

Peter sat with that revelation for a while. It might be good to note that the place he was doing all of this was on the roof of a tanner, which was a lifestyle considered unclean in Jewish culture also. So Peter recognized that it was just to visit the tanner, yet not eat the food. He justified one thing but could not justify the other. He was imposing on God his own interpretations, but through this vision he came to an understanding. “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

No one is too far from God. No one is too good for God. No one is saved apart from God. And no one is excluded. Yet is this how we live?

We dehumanize our enemies saying that they are terrorists, narco-terrorists, or some other term. We look at the political party that we oppose and we give them dehumanizing names. We justify the complete demonization of entire population groups because they do not exceed our own righteousness, and we justify our own failings by saying nobody is perfect. We engage in both sidesisims because they did something we do not feel is right but it is fine when we have the mandate of power. The reality is that God shows no partiality. God will not provide you with justification just because you had power, no you will be judged according to the justice you give to others.

That should scare some of us. Have we treated the people around us with justice? Peter opened his mouth and said, “Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” Yet what did he receive? They hung him on a tree. Why did they hang him on a tree? We can theologically explain this by saying that his sacrifice provided the atonement we needed to become sanctified before a holy God. We would be right. But this still does not change the facts that humanly speaking Jesus was killed because he made powerful people uncomfortable. He showed them the reality of their actions and their intentions. He showed them that just like Herod justified the killing of every male toddler in a province, we justify the mass murder of countless others for our own reasons. We deny them justice, we deny their humanity, we have denied that they like us are humans and joint bearers of the image of God.

They killed him, but God was not finished. God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead, and he commanded us to testify. And what is that testimony? Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. Everyone who believes is brought into God’s family no matter their background or their diet. God does not show partiality. And we are called to reflect his ways, not our own.

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Why? Incarnate

By Jared Warner

Willow Creek Friends Church

January 04, 2026

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Click to read in Swahili

Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili

John 1:1–18 (ESV)

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴ In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. ⁸ He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. ⁹ The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. ¹² But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. ¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵ (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”) ¹⁶ For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. I often contemplate this passage. I think on it because I find it comforting. In the beginning was the Word. The term word or logos here is more than merely a word. It is knowledge, wisdom, or when looking at it from a Hebrew tradition, it would be similar to the word we translate into command. In the beginning was the commands, the knowledge, the wisdom, the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

How often do we consider that aspect of creation? Not only did God speak and things emerged into existence, but there was wisdom, and purpose to the words. There was an intention.

This is what I find comforting. God is interacting, and participating. But what was the intention?

For the past weeks I have been posting on Facebook the background and covert meaning behind the song the 12 Days of Christmas. Tradition believed that this song was written in a code of sorts to be used to teach Catholic children the meaning of Christmas during the persecution of Catholics in England. Some of you might have seen the posts. The twelve days of Christmas are not the twelve days leading up to Christmas, as that is still advent. Instead the twelve days of Christmas are Christmas Day and the eleven days after Christmas until January 5^th and the 6^th is Epiphany. Today is the eleventh day of Christmas, the day our true love gave us eleven drummers drumming. You will have to look at Facebook to get the report on that, but this seemingly simple and secular song, when looking at the potential deeper meaning is profound. Like yesterday, the 10 lords a leaping speaks of the ten commandments, and the lords are leaping not because they have a bunch of rules to follow. They are leaping for joy because they get to follow those commandments.

I have contemplated the commandments many times over the years. I have looked at them as check marks in boxes and I have looked at them as I hope we all look at the Quaker Queries. I have come to understand that Western civilization has often misunderstood the commandments. They are not rules but wisdom. They are a guiding framework to start us along a path. It is the beginning.

I think this is why I love this opening of John’s gospel. Yes, it speaks about all of creation, and it also speaks about our beginning. In the beginning of our own journey of faith we began to realize that our understanding, our wisdom was leading us to a place we did not intend to go. We may have had good intentions when making those decisions, but eventually we came to recognize that the consequences. resulting from our choices were not what we expected. What do we do? What do we do when we lack knowledge, when we are living in ignorance, or when we have a deficiency of understanding.

There are a few options actually. The first is we can willfully remain ignorant. And yes I use that term because I hope it shocks us a bit. There are people that live in willful ignorance. They know that they do not have knowledge, they are aware that the consequences of continuing along that path will continue to lead them deeper into a situation they cannot get out of, yet they refuse help, they refuse to learn. We know people like that. I am a person like that in certain areas within my life. I willfully reject learning a different way, I would rather remain ignorant because if I gain knowledge then I know enough to know that I would be expected to act upon that knowledge.

Then there is a second option. We can seek out understanding. We can go to the library, the school, the university and we can gain some knowledge. We can fill our minds with philosophies, research, ideologies and many other things. This is good. I believe God want us to gain knowledge. But here is the issue, are we seeking knowledge or wisdom?

This second option like the first lacks something. The first is clear that they are refusing to try. They accept fate. Life has no point and suffering is just a part of life. Or worse they believe superstitious ideas, as long as I say the right words or position myself properly things will change, but they never really question why they act that way. And when they are presented with evidence to the contrary they blatantly refuse to acknowledge it. But the second is potentially more dangerous. They are seeking knowledge. They are seeking to grow in understanding in the areas they recognize their own invariance. They seek out teachers, and professors, but they often do not look beyond that. They make an assumption that the things they are being told are accurate without looking deeper.

This second group I feel can be worse because often they seek knowledge to support a preconceived idea. They do not want to actually know, they only want to be able to argue and make those that disagree look bad. That might not be their initial intentions, but they have stopped the journey midway. They have not completed the thought or examined potential outcomes. They found the proof they wanted and that is it.

Then where did this knowledge come from? What was the intention? Is the knowledge gained to give one group power over another, or is the advantage giving greater hope for all people?

This brings us to the third response. This is where we acknowledge our lack of knowledge, we seek knowledge, and we weigh that knowledge with wisdom.

This is what John is speaking about. The wisdom was in the beginning, the wisdom was with God, and the wisdom was God.

God urges us to pursue knowledge and God encourages to apply that knowledge or become wise. In a sense what John is saying is that we should reflect God. This is where the ten leaping lords encourages us. When we look at the commandments of God from a Latin perspective we often see them as things or activities we should not do. And we cannot be blamed for taking this approach the commandments say Thou shalt not… There are a couple of exceptions, we should keep the Sabbath and we should honor our father and mother. Other than that they all say we should not do them. Like I said earlier, these are teachings, they are to begin our journey. If we should not do something our mind should not stop there. We should follow that with a question, what then should I do?

Children have this follow-up almost intuitively. We tell them to do something, and what is the question that often follows, why? We can go around and around with toddlers and teenagers giving reason upon reason, until we become annoyed and finally break down and say, “because I said so that’s why.” Toddlers might cry or do it, teenagers will roll their eyes and might do it half heartedly, but there is something within that exchange that should cause us to pause. They are in the beginning. They are starting a journey, they are at a cross road in their life and they are yearning to know, they are yearning to have wisdom. Will we walk with them?

“He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. … The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.”

To me this sounds like every parent’s struggle. It sounds like every student’s struggle. It sounds like everyone’s struggle. We want to know and be known. We do not want the simple answer or the platitude we want the knowledge so that we can have the wisdom. The parent just wants their children to listen. They do not want to spend hours upon hours arguing about every little thing, they only want you to clean your room so you do not die in a fire. The student want to know why a clean room is so important, why does it matter so much. But they do not listen, we are unable to pass on the knowledge because walls have been erected and assumptions have been made. How do we overcome?

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Incarnation. That is what Christmas is all about. We are celebrating the gifts that God our True Love has given. The word, the wisdom of God became flesh and dwelt among us. God left his throne in heaven to be born into a family, to live within a community. He came to do chores, to work with his hands. He came sitting listening to teachers, asking questions, getting disciplined even when he did not do what they thought he did. He worked with his family. Worked as a carpenter or stone mason right along side his cousins, his uncles, brothers, and Joseph for nearly twenty years. He experienced most of what life can offer. Joy, pain, love, betrayal, and friendship. He became humanity, and he shows us wisdom. And this is what we are called to reflect in our world today.

The world needs to hear the words, but they long for the why. Why is it important to honor, why is it important to have integrity, why is it important to remain faithful? Why? Is it simply because we are told to?

There is a second tradition attached to the ten leaping lords of the twelve days of Christmas. That tradition is that it speaks of the ten trails Israel faced in their wilderness wanderings. They were afraid of Pharaoh’s army as they faced the Red Sea, they grumbled over the lack of water. They longed for the food they once had in Egypt, they hoarded Manna when they were only supposed to gather enough for the day. They worked on the sabbath, they again complained about water, about their food, and the lack of meat. And they did not trust that God could drive out the Giants they faced.

These are called the trials, but there is something more to them. They are the slow and steady process of learning. Of becoming a people, a nation that lives within the wisdom of God. It was the steady progress moving from oppression and looking out for only you basic needs, and moving toward a community and culture reflecting the light and wisdom of God. God was answering the question, that every adolescent asks, he was enduring the eye rolls and the complaints. He was showing them that there are consequences to actions, along with blessing. Until eventually they became a people that could face the giants in faith. This is how Solomon explains it in the book called Wisdom of Solomon:

Wisdom of Solomon 10:15–21 (NRSV)

¹⁵ A holy people and blameless race wisdom delivered from a nation of oppressors. ¹⁶ She entered the soul of a servant of the Lord, and withstood dread kings with wonders and signs. ¹⁷ She gave to holy people the reward of their labors; she guided them along a marvelous way, and became a shelter to them by day, and a starry flame through the night. ¹⁸ She brought them over the Red Sea, and led them through deep waters; ¹⁹ but she drowned their enemies, and cast them up from the depth of the sea. ²⁰ Therefore the righteous plundered the ungodly; they sang hymns, O Lord, to your holy name, and praised with one accord your defending hand; ²¹ for wisdom opened the mouths of those who were mute, and made the tongues of infants speak clearly.

In this book, Solomon speaks of wisdom of God, or Sophia, in an almost incarnate manner. He also speaks of wisdom from a feminine perspective which is beautifully poetic and inclusive. And it quickly became one of my favorite books outside of scripture. The people he says was delivered from a nation of oppressors, and wisdom entered the soul of a servant of the Lord, and that servant stood up against the dread kings with wonders and signs. Wisdom empowers, and wisdom sets us free. It gives us a reward for our labors. People should be rewarded for their labor, when they are not justly compensated eventually there will be trouble. Wisdom guides. It provides light in the darkness and assurance along the path. She bring us through the troubled waters, and removes provides a way past the things that seek to hinder us. She will plunder the unrighteous not because it is rightfully ours, but justice will reign and those that hand out injustice will find their reward.

Wisdom guided Israel through her trials. Wisdom was there in the beginning. In the beginning of creation, in the beginning of the wandering, in the beginning of the nation. Wisdom was with them in the beginning. And wisdom became flesh and dwelt among us.

For From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

The lords are leaping because they have wisdom from God. We are called Friends because we have listened to Jesus’s commands, his teachings and we know what he is doing. We know what he is doing because it is written throughout scriptures. “Go out into to all creation and bring it into submission.” God told our first parents. This is not forcing people to become something they are not, but it is becoming an incarnation of God’s wisdom for all of creation to see. Go and make disciples of all the nations, or all the peoples, Jesus commands us baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit. Go and saturate them with the wisdom of God so that they are no longer raw cloth but cloth dyed and fit for a king. Put off the old self Paul, teaches us, and put on Christ be armored in God.

All of this points to the same place. We need to be God’s people in word and in life. We need to live a life reflecting the life and lifestyle of the Word made flesh, or we need to be flesh made Word. And we need to accept the gifts of God given to us for Christmas. The 11 pipers piping, 10 lords a leaping, 9 ladies dancing, 8 maids a milking, 7 swans a swimming, 6 geese a-laying, 5 golden rings, 4 calling birds, 3 french hens, 2 turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree. These are gifts of grace, gifts of mercy. Not laws that we must abide by, but word made flesh living with us.

Will we let wisdom dwell in us? Will we let wisdom empower us to face the dread kings of this world, and promote justice for the oppressed? Will we be friends of Christ and follow his teachings and know his will? May our communities and families know Christ as they look upon our lives, and may we have a Merry Christmas.

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