Righteous Offspring

Peter Schellhase • August 10, 2025

Sermon for Sunday, August 10, 2025. The sermon refers to the readings given for the day: Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40


Abram is childless, despite God’s promise him that his descendants would inherit the land. Right now his default heir is not even a relative; it is his hereditary steward, Eleazar of Damascus. The fundamental question is this: Can Abram trust God to do what he said?


One thing we notice in this story is that Abram does not in any way try to get God off the hook for his apparently impossible promise, like we so often do: “Maybe I should understand this metaphorically instead of literally” (of this, more anon); or even, as indeed Abram later says of his son with Hagar: “O that Ishmael might live before thee.” No—He takes God’s promise literally, and believes what it says.


If you have read Genesis, you know how this story turns out. 15–25 years after this conversation, God follows through, not only for Abram, but ultimately for all of Abram’s descendants. What is important in this moment is that, seeing none of this as yet, the writer of Genesis says, “Abram believed the Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.” This is one of those places where the writer of Genesis puts a definite spin on the ball. We are to understand Abram’s faith in a specific way, as that which makes him righteous before God. This statement is all the more interesting because the immediate context has apparently nothing to do with righteousness, only with the promise of offspring. However, in the broader context, God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants has everything to do with how a chosen people may live before God in righteousness. Right from the beginning, faith, not the keeping of a law or ethical code, is shown to be the crucial matter. Indeed, Abram’s worst ethical failures are related to his lack of faith, his failure at various times to believe that God is really going to come through for him.


The Epistle lesson from Hebrews puts a finer point on the problem. What about all those people who died believing in God’s promises, but did not see them come to pass in their lifetimes? Abram at least got to see the birth of his promised son, Isaac. But he did not see Isaac’s own sons and grandsons, nor did he see the multitude of their descendants inherit the land which God had promised. Nor, indeed, did he see their exile and return, nor the birth of the Son who is both the author and the fulfiller of his promises.


The preacher to the Hebrews reminds them that Abram is one of many chosen by God to receive his promises, who do not seem to see them realized. God’s timelines are very long, and our lifetimes are comparatively short. Often the blessings and favor we ourselves receive are fruit of the hard and faithful work of our parents and grandparents of which we now enjoy the benefits.


But to be truly happy, Abram must ultimately see these things with his own eyes. This is where the understanding of eternal life and the ultimate resurrection comes in. Those who have, as Hebrews says, “died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar” will themselves perfectly enjoy all that was promised, that they received beforehand by faith.


Even today, the children of Abraham hope for very specific promises to be fulfilled. These promises involve actual land, geographic territory in the world. Theirs is no abstract utopian ideal. The Zionist movement in the late 19th and early 20th century was a novel political movement, but one based on a very ancient premise which the Jews have carried with them ever since God called Abraham out of Mesopotamia: God promised that they would possess this land and dwell in it.


The scripture teaches us that we, too, are children of Abraham. Our claim to this is not based on direct lineage. Ours is the heritage of Abram’s faith, on account of which he was judged righteous before God and worthy of God’s promises. We are not looking for an earthly but a heavenly land and city.


But before we dismiss the earthly hopes of the Jews as having nothing to do with us, think about what I just said. Have any of us really renounced all worldly hopes for ourselves and our descendants? I really doubt this. I certainly have not. I wish and hope for a righteous and peaceful world for my children to grow up in. The state of New York doesn’t feel like that kind of a place to me, but ultimately my hope is not in governors or presidents or even in my fellow citizens, but in God, who is sovereign over all of these.


It’s not un-Christian to hope for good in this world. Jesus himself taught us to pray “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” Christians do not hope only for “pie in the sky by and by” as some deride us. Pie, yes. Sky, not exactly. We believe that in the end Jesus will return to this earth from which he ascended and make all things right and good. Even before that, we believe that we are called to do the work of his kingdom here and now. So while our ultimate homeland is the heavenly Jerusalem which we do not yet see, we are fully invested in the time and place in which we find ourselves now, and especially in that place where the Kingdom of God finds its fullest expression on earth: the Church.


For me this points obviously to the place where we are gathered right now: St. Michael’s Church. As we seek to love and follow Jesus as part of this congregation, we are all, I think, confronted by the distressing fact that St. Michael’s is in a serious state of decline, and has been for a really long time. And we have to seriously ask the question of how long we will be able to continue with our work and mission as a parish since our present way of being is not sustainable.


Maybe here is where we can connect personally with the story of Abram. At the time of this narrative he was between 75 and 85 years old, and Sarai his wife was only 10 years younger. Too old by any reasonable standard to have a child. And yet Isaac was born 15-25 years later, when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah 90.


For us, in 15—25 years it is reasonable to presume that this present congregation will not exist.


It has been said that the Church grows not primarily by natural generation but by adoption. Jesus is both the offspring of Abraham and God’s only begotten Son; we are brothers and sisters adopted in him. As Jesus said, “God is able of these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”


So while I may be at risk of spiritualizing the point, our hope as a congregation is not that a multitude of children may be born to us, but that a multitude of persons who are not now part of our congregation may be brought in. This is the work in which we may participate through evangelism.


This work should not be limited to but should certainly include our own children and extended family members. I encounter so many people who were raised here and have fond memories of the place, but have not attended church in many years, and have raised their own children functionally outside the faith. Shall we hope for the return of those who have chosen to live as exiles from the faith of their childhood? Yes, we should pray for their return. Those who have left the faith are often more difficult to reach than those who have never heard the gospel. They need, more than another invitation, a work of grace to revive their own faith and love toward God.


But what God requires of us in this situation is not (primarily) action. For Abram, as scripture says, “as good as dead,” only faith could bridge the gap between the impossibility of his circumstances and the promises of God.


I close with the words of Jesus, who gives us in today’s gospel a program for how we are to live faithfully in the meantime.

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”


Some of you, I will say, are doing precisely this, with your generous and faithful support of St. Michael’s church, both with your time and your finances. I can’t but think that you are investing in eternity, because as an investment in the here and now it would make little sense. May you reap in due time the reward of your faith, both in this time and in the age to come.


For others, I would encourage you to ask yourself: Do the ways in which I spend my time and my wealth reflect a heart of faith? Or is my treasure bound up in the things of this world which are passing away?


And again, the treasures that are most precious to God are his disciples, his “little flock.” It is for their sake, for love of them, that Jesus exhorts them to adopt an attitude of readiness. And it is also for the sake of those who do not yet know him, or who have strayed from his ways, that he tarries, in order that they also may be gathered in to he fold. This is the opportunity we have been given now. Time draws short. Let us prepare.

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Sunday Sermon: Be Prepared!

By Peter Schellhase • November 30, 2025
How was your Thanksgiving? For me, it was great to be with my family and close friends who gathered at my parents’ home to celebrate. My parents especially enjoyed spending time with their grandchildren, especially baby Jane who they’d hardly seen. At the same time, the difficulties and broken relationships within our family were felt through the absence of some. Four of my siblings and their families joined us in person, and two others who live far away tuned in through Zoom. But my youngest sibling was conspicuously absent. A cousin’s marriage, I learned, has fallen apart. Sadly, he wasn’t there, nor were other members of his family. Another older couple has celebrated Thanksgiving with us for several years after being shunned and cut off by their own adult children, boys I grew up with. We love these friends and are glad to have them with us, yet together we grieve these circumstances. So the holidays are a time when we experience both the joy of togetherness and the pain of loss and brokenness. They are also a time when it is easy to be caught up in frenetic consumer activities. A consumer survey (from Nerdwallet) reports that American gift-buyers expect to spend an average of $1,107 on holiday gifts this season, and those who journey for the holidays expect to spend an average of $2,586 on travel. All told, these shoppers and travelers will spend over $552 billion during the holidays. My generation, the Millennials, will spend the most, and Gen Z, the youngest generation of American adults, will spend the least. However, both younger generations are most likely to drink to excess at holiday parties, with Americans in general likely during the holiday season to imbibe twice the amount of alcoholic beverages they normally consume. I don't think anyone has published how much Americans are spending on inflatable Grinches, but judging from our neighborhood it must be a few billion at least! Christmas is a wonderful time, especially when we are able to keep the main thing—the birth of Jesus—in view. We can and should celebrate! But for many, holiday shopping, decorating, and partying may be less about remembering the Incarnation of our Lord, and more a way of coping with our feelings of pain and emptiness. A friend of mine put it like this: we’re stringing up artificial lights in the darkness of our lives. And today, God, through the Holy Scriptures, has a word for all of us: Wake up! The Lord is coming! Be prepared! First of all, this is a word of comfort and hope for those who have little else to hold on to. The prophet Isaiah directs our attention to the future state, when the Lord will have established his kingdom on earth. In this vision, the dwelling place of God will be exalted on earth, and all nations will be drawn there. We tend to think of “judgment” as a bad thing, and it often is, especially when sinful human beings attempt to wield it. But Isaiah shows us a future world in which people, all people, are attracted to the perfect judgment of God. They want it, they seek it, they need his law to make peace among the nations and peoples of the earth. In those days “nation shall not lift up sword against nation.” Think of it—a world in which nations not only seek to avoid conflict, but the arts of war are forgotten. “Neither shall they learn war anymore.” In one of the greenhouses attached to our church there is a little figurine on a pedestal, depicting a muscular figure hammering a sword into a plowshare. This is modeled on a statue of heroic proportions by Evgeny Vuchetich which stands at the United Nations, a gift from the USSR in 1959, a few years after this church was founded. It’s revealing how even that officially atheist regime could find no better emblem for its propaganda campaign than this striking image from the prophet Isaiah of a peace that comes about not by human effort but by divine rule. In the nearly 70 years since, neither Soviet collectivism nor American capitalism nor any other human agency has shown any ability to turn from making war to making peace. Ironically, in the ’80s the image and title of this sculpture was used as the badge of a Christian pacifist youth movement in East Germany. They were of course persecuted by the Stasi. Witness the contradictions of the regime that promoted “peace movements” abroad but hounded the children of peace at home! Yet in the days prophesied by Isaiah, God’s people will be honored by all the nations of the earth because the Lord will make his dwelling-place among them. His justice and his rule will go forth from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. Though this future state is not something they can bring about themselves, Isaiah encourages his people to “walk in the light of the Lord” in hope and expectation of that day, and as witnesses of what is to come. If they walk in God’s light, God will be present with them as Lord and lawgiver, and many peoples will be attracted by the holiness and the power of God that is manifested among them. But the final day of peace and justice will not come but through tribulation. It is, after all, the day of judgment. Jesus himself teaches his disciples to soberly expect this day—though not to fear it. He says that the final day will come much as came the flood upon Noah's unwary neighbors who had refused to see or hear his witness to the righteousness of God. And if we're not careful, we may find ourselves in that same condition. To help us make ready, the Church gives us this season of Advent. While all around us it is a time for shopping, partying, traveling, getting ready—although people hardly know what it is they are supposed to be getting ready for—we are to conduct ourselves differently. “Stay awake,” Jesus tells us, “for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Advent is the season for preparing, not so much for the celebration of our Lord’s Incarnation, as for his second and final appearing at the end of days. How do we prepare? St. Paul says, in unison with Isaiah and our Lord, that it’s time to wake up and walk in the light. The world is dark both symbolically and literally; nights are growing longer and days shorter. Yet the eternal day is coming; Christians are to live now as if the day of God has come; we are to live as those who belong to that kingdom which has yet to be revealed on earth. Christ’s judgment and his gracious law of love is manifested here and now, not in the world at large, but in and through his Church. Where the world practices carousing and drunkenness, we are to be sober, self-controlled, and filled with his Holy Spirit. While people in the world are divided and alienated from one another by fighting and envy, we are to love our neighbor as our own selves and forgive as we have been forgiven. While the world pursues personal gratification no matter the cost, we are to be faithful, chaste, and content with our lot in life, knowing that we await the inheritance of the redeemed, washed in the Savior's blood. In short, as Paul says, we are to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” the whole and perfect Man who does away in us all that is unworthy of him. May his gracious judgment purge us of all that is unworthy, and his law of love be written forever on our hearts!

Sunday Sermon: All Saints Day

By Peter Schellhase • November 2, 2025
Daniel was born a prince of Jerusalem, but went into captivity after the Babylonian conquest, probably as a teenager, and lived as an exile in a foreign land for the rest of his life. Daniel rose to high influence when Nebuchadnezzar the king had a troubled night. None of his soothsayers could tell him what his dream was or what it meant. Daniel did both. He described the king’s vision as a great image of a man, made of a series of materials that grew more and more base as it progressed from head to foot. Finally, a stone struck the image and blew it to smithereens, and the stone became a mountain that filled the whole earth. This, Daniel said, was a vision of the kingdoms of men, of which the finest was Nebuchadnezzar's own, which would be followed by a succession of various empires until finally the God of heaven would “set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and it shall stand for ever” (Dan. 2:31-44) Nebuchadnezzar raised Daniel to a high position and relied on him to help govern the empire. But after the king died, his son, Belshazzar, ascended the throne, and Daniel was put out to pasture. Now Daniel himself receives a vision. The things depicted in the vision is very different, but its ultimate meaning is the same as in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. It is not sent to a Babylonian king drunk on his own power. It is sent to an old and worried man, an exile whose influence has waned in the new administration. This time, no golden statue. Instead, four rough and gruesome beasts. Unlike in the vision of the giant statue it is very clear these beasts are not glorious but brutal and bestial. The vision evokes the turmoil and chaos of the world as the churning waters of an angry sea from which these beasts emerge. Our reading today skips a bunch of verses that talk about their fearsome appearance and blasphemous deeds. Yet in the end, these great powers are subdued under the reign of “one like a son of man,” “the ancient of days.” Who can this be but Jesus, the eternal Word of the Father, who is both “eternally begotten of the Father,” and who for our sake “was made man,” according to the creed, and who will come again in glory. The consequence of his triumph over these powers is glory and exaltation for his holy ones. “The saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, for ever and ever,” the interpreter tells Daniel, the repetition emphasizing the finality of these eternal victory. Daniel is especially disturbed the vision of the fourth beast the one with ten blasphemous horns, which is greater and more terrible than all the others, and the vision is recounted and interpreted a second time. Notwithstanding these things, he is told, this fourth beast will be utterly destroyed and the Lord will reign forever. And now for something completely different. For our offertory hymn today we’ll sing that fun little children's hymn, “I sing a song of the saints of God.” I have a love-hate relationship with this song. It’s so English—so early 20th-century English—that it seems maybe a little too cute or even inaccessible to our culture: “You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea.” Of course, that's also its charm. Go ahead and smirk. I do. Just don't let the smirk distract you from the very serious point this cute little song is making: The saints of God are are indeed ordinary, everyday people, people like you and me. In fact, they are you and me. By faith, we are to receive this sainthood as our true identity and vocation: men, women, and children called to be saints to the glory of God. St. Paul puts it like this: “In him” (Jesus), “according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” What a great promise this is. What do we bring to the table here? Hardly much. Only that the Word of God has come to us, the word of truth, the gospel of salvation, and we have believed in Jesus as the fulfillment of all God’s promises. In this faith we are sealed, marked with the gift of the Holy Spirit, who enfolds us in the reciprocal love of the Father and the Son. This is as much a present reality as it is a future hope. It is true both now and to eternal ages. That doesn't mean that life for the saints is all cottage gardens and cream teas with the Vicar. Again, that cute Sunday-school hymn goes pretty hard: “Who toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew.” And then in the next verse: “And one was a doctor and one was a priest and one was slain by a fierce wild beast”—probably a reference to St. Ignatius who was thrown to the lions, but could just as easily refer to thousands of Christian martyrs throughout the centuries. But what about that cheerful, jaunty tune? The music is actually very well matched with the text, because these hardships in no way diminish the tone of celebration. To suffer for the sake of Christ, even to die, is to participate with him in his conquest of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Well may the Psalmist declare: “Let the faithful rejoice in triumph; let them be joyful on their beds. Let the praises of God be in their throat, and a two-edged sword in their hand.” That sword, of course, is not the human weapons of war but the word of truth that proceeds from the mouth of God. So today, on the Feast of All Saints, we can hardly do better than to remember and celebrate all those saints of God who follow in his triumphal procession, singing his victory chants, raising his cross as their standard, clothed in the seamless garment of his righteousness.