June 7, 2026 Proper 5 First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA
Romans 4:1-5; 13-25
What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. 5 But to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression.
16 For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”), in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Early this past week I was browsing through Facebook when I came upon a post from a young man who’s running to be an Assemblyman in northeastern Connecticut. It began this way:
Happy Straight Month! It’s American to be Anti-Pride Month, this is America’s 250th Anniversary!
In unfortunate recent history, Pride Month recognition began with Bill Clinton in 1999!
Take a stand like George Washington. In 1778, during the Revolutionary War, while serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, Washington approved the court-martial and dismissal of Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin. Enslin was charged with “attempting to commit sodomy.”
As your State Representative, I, Jadon MacCormack, would stand firmly against the Transgender and LGBT movement that has for too long corrupted our families, undermined parental authority, and eroded the foundational values of our society. This ideology promotes confusion over clarity, prioritizes feelings over biological reality, and seeks to redefine the natural order of marriage, family, and human identity in ways that directly contradict God-given rights and common sense.
I will fight relentlessly in the state legislature to protect our children from premature medical interventions, indoctrination in schools, and the normalization of perverse ideologies that threaten the innocence of the next generation.[1]
Then I looked down, and the candidate’s mom had also re-posted a post he’d originally put up in 2025 – a picture of a noose, with the caption “The Bible has a better idea”.
A man who believes that the Bible encourages the execution of gay people is running for election to the Connecticut Assembly.
I was shocked. And I hope you are as well. Don’t get lost in the little typos or errors of fact. Pay attention to the hatred and fear instead. See that this is being said, out in public, by someone running for elected office, just down the road and over the state line from us.
Reading it sure made it clear why we need times like June, Pride Month, to make it clear that God welcomes everyone. It tells us there’s a reason why we need to have times like this to make it clear that LGBTQ people do not stand by themselves while this kind of vileness is thrown at them.
When we became an Open and Affirming Church we pledged ourselves to stand with those who were hated for who they are.
Today I want to talk about why we believe that God loves everyone, about that belief that underlies just about everything we do, so that when you meet hatred, especially hatred that says it’s the Christian way, you’ll be able to stand up for the Gospel. And at the end, I’ll tell you what’s happening over in Connecticut, at least so far.
You know, we don’t just make this up out of whole cloth. Everything we preach and believe has its foundation in the Bible. We take the ideas of the Bible seriously, looking for the basic principles in stories, and studying how those principles can guide us in today’s problems and challenges.
We don’t take it literally, because if we did, we’d be locking ourselves into what the original authors talked about 2000 or more years ago, locking ourselves into their ideas about science, or history. And the Bible was never written to be a cookbook or a history book or even a science text. It was written to be a guidebook for life.
So, let’s begin with just a short quote from chapter 9 of Matthew’s gospel:
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 first thing to see is that this is the story of how Jesus called Matthew to be one of the disciples. But it has more to tell us…. Matthew was a tax collector, and Jesus called him… but tax collectors were the scum of the earth. Jesus sat down to eat with people no one trusted or liked, people who weren’t going to get the best seat at the restaurant. So, it’s not just a simple story about how Matthew turned into St. Matthew; it’s a story about how even the people who are most feared, most despised are welcomed by God. No matter who you are or where you are on your life’s journey, you are welcome at God’s table. Jesus has made that clear.
Matthew’s story isn’t our only lesson for today. So, let’s turn to the Letter to the Romans. In the lesson we read today, Paul is explaining why it is that Abraham is important to everyone, gentile or Jew. When you read it closely – or have a class in Romans, as I did last week – it begins to be clear that what he’s saying is that Abraham’s life is a picture of how God relates to human beings.
God didn’t choose Abraham, Paul says, because Abraham was the best person on the block, (or in his world, had the most, best, sheep flocks). Abraham was good, for sure, but not that good. Remember, he not only has a wife, Sarah, but a maidservant named Hagar with whom he has a son, Ishmael…. And when Sarah is jealous of Hagar and Ishmael, Abraham threw them out. Not the actions of a consistently good man, for sure. And yet, God invites Abraham to follow God and Abraham says yes.
Paul says, “now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift, but as something due, but to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly….the promises that Abraham would inherit the world…” didn’t come through works, but through Abraham’s faith in following God. Abraham didn’t earn God’s love with good deeds; he was givenGod’s love through grace.
It is not our ability to be consistently good people — though we certainly work on that – but our willingness to try, our love of God, our intention to follow God’s way that makes us God’s beloved children.
Now some might argue, sure they’re right, that Paul himself says – both in Romans and in 2 Corinthians – that having gay sex is wrong. We’ll be showing a movie in the fall about this particular translation, but for today all we need to know is that whenever Paul gives a list of “bad behaviors” he’s not writing a report on bad behaviors, he’s describing things that people in his time thought were bad. It’s not surprising that people 2000 and more years ago thought being gay was wrong; we thought being gay was wrong just a few years ago. Heck, when I was a kid, teachers tried to talk my parents into making me right-handed, because being left-handed meant I was untrustworthy and awkward. Science and psychology have made a lot of progress in the last hundred years.
Today we have better science, better psychology, and we understand that there’s nothing wrong with being left-handed, and there’s nothing wrong with being gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, or any other way of describing how we relate to one another. Today we know that what matters is love, is the quality of a relationship.
We see that same love in God’s arms reached out to all of us, even that poor young man down in Connecticut who so fears gay people. Paul gives us the theological reasons for why that’s true; being here in this congregation, a place where all are welcome, gives us the experience of God’s welcoming love. And being fed at God’s table, with this tangible sign of everlasting welcome is the final proof.
Over this past week, since that first vile post went up, the outrage has grown down in Connecticut. The candidate has been repudiated by his Party, his views condemned by area legislators in his party (as well as the opposite party), and he is constantly being asked to step down. Now, some members of his party, over in Eastford, are petitioning to add a new candidate to the election, so that there will have to be a primary. Yes, he has some supporters, but not many. Right now, it doesn’t look as though his campaign will succeed.
Remember this always: God loves us all, each and every one, as we are, where we are, every day all the time. So come to this table and know you are loved.
Amen.
© 2026, Virginia H. Child
[1] Jadon E. MacCormack. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122115089558951847&set=a.122104237298951847
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 