Matthew 3:1–11
Not When for Jesus but Where?
To call this a “lectionary devotional” means pairing a specific biblical passage with a season of the church year. As someone who preached in liturgical churches for nearly 40 years, I know how these seasons — Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and Ordinary Time — shaped worship, music, staff meetings and even vacations.
I get it. Preaching from the lectionary holds us accountable to a text greater than our own pet passages or favorite theologies. But I wonder if our focus on who Jesus was and when he will return distracts us from something just as important. As the Bible gives witness, place is primary — so where are the places God seems to show up most?
The theological answer is “everywhere” if we have eyes to see. But for today's witness through the “Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses and Settlement Movement, 1890–1965, God shows up in and through communities of people where Jesus Christ spent most of his time — places for strangers in exile and suffering. Places where you find the last, least, and especially the lost and places where good Samaritans “do unto others. ...”
For 75 years, these Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses offered not just shelter but also a witness to hope for the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Not everyone welcomed this, but more did than now. These houses reflected part of our national and Presbyterian DNA: gospel-rooted hospitality.
Today, it seems our DNA has changed. We're no longer an America like that. No longer are immigrants allowed into this place, and if we discover they're already here, ICE will come, arrest them, and send them away to whatever country we can pay or coerce to take them off our hands.
Practically, yes, there need to be boundaries. But what do we have now? And at what cost to our mission and ideals? At the cost of turning our back on the good Samaritan parable, or Matthew 25, or everything else Jesus said and did? At the cost of God's will? I shudder to imagine God's justice at the end of this.
In today’s passage, Jesus shows up in the wilderness, one of many migrants from Jerusalem and Judea seeking renewal in baptism. John the Baptist calls them to repent — to turn from the place they’re in and migrate to God’s place. Even the “holy men” came, but John called them out for treating people like dirt.
So, where is God? Right there, in the wilderness. With the seekers, the wanderers, the ones willing to be changed. And Jesus stands with them. With us.
Prayer: O God, who stands in the wilderness with us, give us hope. Grant us the strength to recognize that you are with us. May we go out into the world boldly knowing that you go with us. Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Steve Goyer was born in Birmingham, Alabama; raised and then worked in Charlotte, North Carolina; educated in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; matured in Atlanta; and is hopefully growing wiser in Jacksonville, Florida. Steve served as the pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Atlanta for 15 years and then at Riverside Presbyterian Church for 14. Steve retired until Covid hit, then took a 15-month
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