
I love stories, and life has given me plenty to tell. It has long been my plan to put them down on paper. My path has taken me through 15 years of entrepreneurship, travelling, and finally, immigrating. I found myself again in a new place as an employed software engineer, and now, five years onwards, I am transitioning back to independence.

I was born in soviet Moscow and went to school in a new, unknown country that had yet to define itself. I belong to the single, non-indoctrinated generation of Russians around: we were taught that anything was possible and that our only limits were those we set for ourselves. This played some bad jokes on me: Once my childhood was over, the country decided to make another turn, this time back to authoritarianism, and together with its people, happily embraced the old and familiar soviet dogmas.

So, a year after graduating high school, I jumped on the website development bandwagon that has carried me for the last 20 years.

My experience was not purely virtual: my severe first \[ad]venture was an e-commerce website that sold shoes and accessories (my friend brought the idea, not a passion for shoes!). The next one was even more grounded: a chain of gadget repair stores. The third I would call 'Chinese adventures', as I was involved in trading activities for many small-scale entrepreneurs like me in China. These adventures, spanning from 2000 to 2014, were thrilling but ended abruptly as Russia took a turn I couldn't follow.

That time, my country decided to be, once again, the bad guy and no one asked me if I wanted to participate, so I quit.

The word 'quit' is nice and short! Applying it to reality was a grilling experience. It took me several attempts and struggles to acquire a new true home: Israel. Most of my current stories are related to this land and its people.

I'm practical, so I write about entrepreneurship, technology, business, and ideas in general. I have never been short of ideas, and I believe in the power of sharing them to make the ideas a part of reality, to let them sprout and witness the fruits.

To set the record straight, I am a Christian, so my viewpoint is not so common in Israel or the world of tech. This lens offers a distinctive angle to my experiences and reflections.


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Immigrant, Enterpreneur, Husband, Father and Son

Rodion Kuprin

Sermons preached at Immanuel Church in Tel Aviv.

Sermons


*Delivered at Immanuel Church, Tel Aviv — February 21, 2026*

**Readings:** 1 Corinthians 3:18–23 · Matthew 5:43–48

---

I have many friends and acquaintances who are not believers, and they send me the same video year after year. The day comes when someone new gets exposed to this piece of humour, and if he knows me, he immediately knows what to do about it.

It's the [George Carlin bit about religion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BFIRgn9OLI&t=1s). I doubt there's anyone in this room who hasn't received it at least once — as a lighthearted joke, or a way to provoke, or as a funny way to finish the argument. I'll paraphrase for those who may have forgotten the punch: there's a man in the sky, he is all-knowing and all-powerful, and he has a particular list of ten things he does not want you to do, and if you do any of those things, you are going to be tortured for eternity. And then Carlin stops, and delivers it: _but he loves you._ And then he stops again: _and he needs your money._

From beginning to end, this bit resembles a worldly version of the creed. It touches on all the pain points the world has with God — his power, his judgment, his love, his Church — and presents our relationship with him as a ridiculous, stupid joke.

And no clever argument on our part can fix it.

This is exactly the reaction Paul expects. He writes to the Corinthians:

> _"The wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight."_

And this works the other way around, too. What is of God appears as foolishness to the world. When Paul stood before Festus, the Roman governor, and spoke about Christ and the resurrection, Festus interrupted him and said: _"You are out of your mind, Paul! Your great learning is driving you insane."_ This wasn't a polite disagreement. This was a powerful, educated man looking at a believer and concluding that he had lost his mind.

Carlin's audience laughs for the same reason Festus shook his head. From the outside — from the world's perspective — what we believe and how we live makes no sense.

---

And Paul's response to this is remarkable. He does not say: "Let me explain it better so the world will understand." He does not offer a smarter argument. He says: _become fools._

> _"Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become 'fools' so that you may become wise."_

God's wisdom is not a worldly wisdom with a cross on top. It is completely, fundamentally incompatible with it. And this incompatibility is not a problem to be solved. It is a feature of life in Christ.

And it touches everything. It's not only the fact that we come to church each Saturday, or that some of us say grace before a meal. God's wisdom, as it slowly works its way into you, begins to reshape the way you make decisions — all of them. Business decisions. Financial decisions. How you treat people who have wronged you. Whether you respond to an insult with an insult. Whether you do what the world expects from you in pursuit of a benefit.

And when you make those decisions differently — not for show, not to be strange, but because you genuinely cannot do it the other way anymore — people around you will notice. They will think something is wrong with you. They may twist a finger at their temple behind your back and refer to you in their stand-ups. And that, brothers and sisters, is not a bad sign.

But let's be honest with ourselves. We all know the tension. We all recognise in ourselves the pull toward having two modes of operation: the Saturday self who sits in this room, and the Monday self who operates by a different set of rules — the "real", "normal" rules. And that gap — between what we confess on Saturdays and how we live — that gap is precisely where God's foolish wisdom wants to do its work.

---

Let me give you an example of what this looks like. It is something that everyone who has decided to accept God's reality and try to live accordingly has experienced.

You see someone around you who is suffering. Perhaps it's sickness, or loneliness, or poverty — or, as it happens quite often, all of the above. He may not be vocal about it. But you happen to be a witness, and he is your neighbour. And as a reasonable person, you sit down and think: here is what I can do, and here is the limit of my ability. I have a family to care for. I have responsibilities of my own. This is a sober, honest approach — and it is not a wrong one. So you do what you can, approaching the limit you have set for yourself.

But the person and his problems do not go away. He lingers near, and he's one of the people you pray for. And you think again — being a reasonable man — I have done what I could. His problems are not going away. Can I solve them? No, I cannot. Perhaps this is simply how life is.

It is always the same question: me or someone else. My evening or his need. A better cut of meat for my family, or a simpler meal shared with someone who has none. We face it so often we barely notice it anymore.

The sages of the Talmud distilled it in its barest form to construct a reasonable answer: two men are travelling through a desert, and one has a flask of water. If they share, both will die. If only one drinks, he will survive. Rabbi Akiva taught that your own life takes precedence. It is an answer that worldly wisdom may call correct.

But being followers of the Messiah who was hanged on the tree, we see that the reasonable answer is not enough.

And we are not in the desert, but now we can return to the person sitting near you — the one whose problems have not gone away — with some better understanding of the situation. The distilled question and the everyday question are the same question. And I have a strong feeling you already know the answer. You have done what you believed you could. Now it is time to do what you cannot. Because it is not you who will do the work, nor is it you who will measure the results. You have been called; you accepted the call. And this time, you will stand up.

---

Now — here is where I want us to notice something we almost never notice.

When we reach a boundary like this — between what is sensible and what God seems to be asking — we feel it as a crisis of faith. As if we are being asked to leap into the dark. And that is understandable.

But consider: the entire world we live in is built on faith, and we never call it that. Banks, money, contracts — the whole system exists, functions, and holds together because millions of people place their trust in it every day. No one calls this faith. No one says: "You are naive for building your entire life around the assumption that these systems will hold." We call it common sense.

But the moment someone trusts God's promise with the same seriousness — the moment someone takes "give, and it will be given to you" as seriously as they take their savings account — it is foolishness. It is naivete. It is the man in the sky.

And here is what Paul catches: _"He catches the wise in their craftiness."_ The wise are not caught because they lack faith. They are caught because they don't recognise their own faith for what it is. The world runs on enormous trust in its own constructs, and calls that trust reason. And the trust God asks of us — which is, in its nature, no different — the world calls foolishness.

---

Imagine a person who has inherited a great estate. He goes about his daily life with a certain ease. And because he is secure, he can afford to be generous. He can afford to be patient. He can afford to take risks that others cannot.

Now listen to how Paul continues — because this is where the passage takes a surprising turn:

> _"No more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours — whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God."_

All things are yours.

You have inherited the greatest estate that ever was. Not because you built or earned it. But because you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

And from within this inheritance, something strange happens to the word _sacrifice._ That evening you spent with someone in need — the one that seemed, by your calculations, unreasonable — what is it, really, set against the estate you have received? What the world calls sacrifice, the child of God may simply call Tuesday.

---

The heir knows what the Father is like. And the Father's love does not stop at those we find easy to love. His sun rises on all. This is where the foolishness of God reaches its most radical — its most impossible — point.

Jesus says:

> _"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven."_

Love your enemies.

In this country, at this moment in history — you don't need me to tell you how that sounds. You know. The world says: pick a side. Protect your own — we talked about it the last time. And here stands Jesus, saying: love them. Pray for them.

This is not a figure of speech and not a metaphor. These words mean exactly what they say. Not love in some abstract, theological sense, but actual love for actual enemies. And throughout the centuries, sincere Christian theologians have dealt with this commandment in exactly the same way as their Jewish sage colleagues: they have struggled with it, spiritualized it, limited the circle of those considered "the enemy," viewed love as an internal state, not as a specific action — honestly and sincerely seeking a way to make God's impossible demand fit within the framework of human wisdom. Which is, of course, precisely what Paul warns against.

We cannot do this. Not by our own strength, willpower or wisdom. To love an enemy requires something that does not come from within us. It requires the Holy Spirit. It requires asking God, again and again, for the capacity to do what is humanly impossible. Not once, but daily. Not as an achievement we complete, but as a gift we keep receiving.

And Jesus himself tells us why: _"that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."_ And then he says: _"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."_ This is, perhaps, the most terrifying sentence in all of Scripture. But listen to what perfection means here: it is the Father's own character — sending sun and rain on everyone, withholding nothing, loving without calculating who deserves it. The perfection Jesus calls us to is not a standard we achieve. It is a character of God we receive. We participate in it not by mastering it, but as heirs — because, as Paul just told us, all things are already ours.

---

And this brings us to the heart of it.

Because Christ was the ultimate fool in the eyes of the world. He loved his enemies — which is to say, he loved us — to the point of death. The cross is the most foolish act in human history: God becoming man, and then allowing himself to be killed by the people he came to save. No worldly wisdom can make sense of that.

And the foolishness we are called into is not a program we execute. It is not a standard we achieve. It is a life we have already been given — in baptism, in the Word, at this table.

Of course this is not something we learn once and hold forever. We stumble through it. We wake up on Monday and slip back into the world's wisdom before we've finished our coffee. And our trust in the one who gave us everything shrinks a little. But each time we act from the "foolish" inheritance rather than from our calculations, it grows a little.

And what does God do with that?

The Psalmist tells us:

> _"He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him."_

The Father Jesus points us to in Matthew — the one who sends sun on the evil and the good, rain on the righteous and the unrighteous — is the same Father the Psalmist sings about. The one whose compassion is not measured by our performance. There is a man in the sky — and he loves you. Not as a punchline. As the most radical truth in the universe. And the cross proves it.

We are fools. We are heirs. We are loved.

And we are sent back into the world — not with a better argument, but with a different life.

Amen.


A sermon on the foolishness of God that confounds the wisdom of the world, and the radical call to love our enemies.

Holy Fools


*Delivered at Immanuel Church, Tel Aviv — February 14, 2026*

**Readings:** Psalm 119:1–16 · Deuteronomy 30:15–20 · 1 Corinthians 2:6–13

---

## I

How free are you? Truly, honestly — how free? You woke up this morning and had breakfast. If you drink coffee, you had coffee. You drove the same roads, walked the same streets, or took the same bus. And in a few hours, you will go home, and you will do what you do on Saturday afternoon, because that is what you do on Saturday afternoon. How much of that did you actually choose?

There is a well-known atheist writer, Sam Harris, who wrote a short book called _Free Will_. His argument is simple: free will is an illusion. We are biological machines. Our choices — big and small — are determined by our genes, our upbringing, and our neural wiring. We are, he says, no more free than a computer running its code.

Long before, Martin Luther wrote a book called _The Bondage of the Will_. And Luther said something that sounds, on the surface, remarkably similar: the human will is not free. It is in bondage. In everyday things, Luther leaves us with that — which coffee to buy, which road to take — yes, you have a kind of freedom. But in the things that matter for eternity — turning toward God, trusting His promise, loving Him with your whole heart — the will that is apart from God cannot do it. Not because it is a machine, as Harris thinks, but because it is captive. Captive to sin, to the old Adam, to a nature that curves inward on itself.

Sam Harris looks at this and concludes: therefore, there is no freedom. Luther looks at the same bondage and says: therefore you need God.

So, again, where is your freedom, your power of will?

## II

Today's reading from Deuteronomy seems to offer the answer. Moses stands before the people and declares:

> "See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction... Now choose life."

Life or death. Two options. Not which coffee to buy or which party to support. The one real choice: God, or not God. Life, or death.

This sounds like freedom. Finally! A choice that matters, a choice that is truly ours.

And if it were that simple — if we could just choose life, just like that — then every sermon could be very short, and we would save much time in church. "Love God. Do not sin." Done. Go home.

But here Luther's insight cuts deep. "Choose life" sounds like an invitation. But it is a commandment. It is the law. And what the Law demands, the bound will cannot deliver. You cannot wake up tomorrow and choose life — real life, life as God means it — any more than you can lift yourself off the ground by pulling on your own boots.

Why? Because "life" in God's vocabulary is not what we think it means. When we hear "choose life," we hear: choose _my_ life. My health. My family. My safety. My people. And of course, these matter. But the will that curves inward on itself can only orbit the self. It can choose individual survival. It cannot choose _life_.

And yet God was not cruel to set this choice before His people. Just verses before Moses says, "choose life," God makes a promise that changes the spirit of the commandment itself:

> "The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live."

God commands what He Himself will provide. He does not say "choose life" and then walk away. He promises to perform the heart surgery that makes the choice possible. Already in Deuteronomy, there is a whisper of the Gospel hidden inside the Law: your choosing will be held by something greater than your will.

## III

God promised the heart surgery. But how? When? Paul gives us the answer:

> "What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived — the things God has prepared for those who love him — these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit."

Now, it may sound like Paul is simply continuing where Moses left off: choose life, love God, and you will be richly rewarded. It sounds like a condition — the things God has prepared _for those who love him_.

But that is not what Paul is saying. Look at the shape of it. He does not say: go and find these things. He does not say: earn these things by loving harder. He says: no eye has seen them. No ear has heard them. No human mind has conceived them. In other words — you could not have gotten here on your own. Not by effort, not by wisdom, not by willpower. These things were beyond you entirely.

And then: God has _prepared_ them. God has _revealed_ them. The Spirit has _given_ them. Every verb belongs to God. This is not a reward for obedience. This is a gift you receive freely — now. Right here, in the middle of your failure, in the middle of your inability to choose life the way Moses commanded.

The righteousness that surpasses anything we could produce on our own is not a higher human effort. It is a different kind entirely. It is Christ's righteousness, received, not achieved. This is the Gospel. Not "try harder." Not "choose better." But: God has done what you could not conceive, and He gives it freely.

## IV

So what does this look like? What does it look like when the bound will meets the living God?

A senior pastor once shared an observation with me. He said that people come to faith carrying all kinds of identities and convictions. Someone arrives as a committed socialist. Someone else as a fierce nationalist. One person defines herself by her politics, another by his ethnicity, another by the cause she has given her life to. Jew and Arab. Left and right. Religious and secular. Ashkenazi and Mizrahi. These are not small things — they shape how people see the world, whom they trust, and whom they fear.

And then, he said, something strange happens. Over time, in the life of the church, those identities begin to loosen. Not because the church demands it. But because something deeper is quietly replacing what sat at the centre.

Why? What is doing this?

Jesus tells us:

> "Your Father in heaven causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

God does not pick sides. Everyone is loved by God just the same. And when that truth begins to work on you, the old walls start to crack — not because you decided to tear them down, but because they cannot stand in the presence of a God who refuses to recognize them.

But the world demands the opposite. Pick a side. Pick your faction in the conflict. And the moment you do, you belong to that side. You adopt its enemies, its logic, its hatreds. You think you chose freely, but now the side is choosing for you. Sometimes it is not even a choice: you are put in a box with others who share your skin colour or your passport, and the box decides what you are allowed to think, to feel, to pray for.

This is bondage upon bondage. Inside, the will pulls inward. Outside, the world narrows it further. And somewhere in the middle, Moses is still saying: choose life. How?

Not by choosing _your_ life. But by choosing _life_. Life as God sees it. Life that includes everyone, even the ones your nature tells you to exclude. Life that is bigger than survival, bigger than your side, bigger than the lines the world has drawn.

Here in Israel, we feel this more sharply than most. When you hear the siren, when you rush to the shelter — there is nothing more natural than to pray for yourself, for your people. God hears that prayer. He does not scold you for it.

But death is not only the rocket. Death is also the hatred that grows in your heart while you sit in the shelter. Death is when the enemy stops being a human being in your mind. Death is when the prayer on your lips narrows until there is no room left in it for anyone but yourself.

When the siren sounds, what prayer rises to your lips? Let us be honest. It is not hard to find comfort in the prayers of Joshua's time — prayers for victory, prayers for the destruction of enemies, prayers that God would crush those who threaten His people. Those prayers are in the Bible. They are real. And in the moment of terror, they come naturally.

But we are not in Joshua's time. We are on this side of the cross. And Christ calls us somewhere we would not go on our own:

"Lord, grant peace. Lord, remove the hatred from my heart. Lord, remove hatred from _their_ hearts. Give them a good life, let them see their children back, and let me see mine. Give us peace and spare our lives."

Notice how the Lord's Prayer teaches us to pray in exactly this direction. It begins at the top: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." The first words out of our mouths are not about us. They are about God's name, God's kingdom, God's will — for the whole earth. Only then does the prayer move closer: give us bread, forgive us, deliver us. The blueprint is universal first, personal second. The prayer trains us to see as God sees: from the whole, down to the one.

That is not how we naturally pray. That is how we ought to pray. And the distance between those two — between the prayer that rises on its own and the prayer Christ sets before us — that distance is the exact measure of our bondage.

But when that second prayer begins to form — even weakly, even reluctantly, even through gritted teeth — know that it did not come from you. That is a product of grace. That is the Spirit doing what you could not do for yourself.

That is the heart surgery God promised in Deuteronomy, performed by the Spirit Paul proclaims. In that moment, you are not choosing your life. You are choosing life. And you are free — truly free — perhaps for the first time.

## V

Brothers and sisters: you are not as free as you think. Most of your choices are made by habit, by nature, by the world's demands. And the one choice that matters — life or death, God or not God — is too great for our bound hearts to make alone. Even our prayers reveal it: we orbit ourselves.

But God has prepared what no eye has seen. The Spirit reveals what no mind could conceive. And in that revelation, you find yourself — miracle — choosing life. Not your life. Life. Not by your strength. By His.

Choose life. But know that even your choosing is held by the One who chose you first.

Amen.


A sermon on the bondage of the will, the one choice that matters, and the God who makes our choosing possible.

The One Free Choice


*Delivered at Immanuel Church, Tel Aviv — November 8, 2025*

**Readings:** Luke 18:1–8a

---

## The Widow Who Cannot Hide

A widow in first-century Judea, standing outside the courthouse. No husband to speak for her. No wealth to hire representation. In both Jewish law and Roman practice, a widow was the definition of vulnerability.

The Torah itself recognised this — again and again, God commands: _care for the widow, defend the widow, do not exploit the widow_. Why? Because she had no protector. No social safety net. She was, in the most literal sense, _defenceless_.

And yet here she is, Scripture tells us, approaching an unjust judge — a man who "neither feared God nor respected people."

Here she's using the only thing she has: her voice. Her persistence. Her ability to keep showing up and being a nuisance. The judge himself says it — "because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming." She has discovered the one power available to the powerless: the power to refuse to go away.

Jesus presents this example stripped of all nuance and loopholes: the widow desperately needs justice, the judge is indifferent, and yet she receives help because she is persistent. And Jesus doesn't leave us to puzzle over the meaning. He explains: if an unjust judge can be moved by persistence, how much more will our Heavenly Father hear us when we cry out to Him?

---

## The Widow's Posture: Helplessness Turned into Faith

Now, let's look at what made this widow's demands effective. Not eloquence. Not moral standing.

She had one man who could grant her justice, one door to knock on. So she knocked.

Her helplessness gave her clarity. Her persistence wasn't born from confidence or willpower. It was born from the desperate mathematics of having nowhere else to go.

This is what Jesus wants us to see: she responded to her situation with clear-eyed realism. She was powerless, yes — but she knew where power resided. And from that conclusion flowed everything else — her persistence, her refusal to give up.

The widow's clarity was unique in a way — Jesus has given us an imaginary, simplified example, drawn in stark lines. But this parable worked immediately for His audience because it was _recognizably_ close to their lives.

Most of Jesus's first hearers survived on things they couldn't control. Rain for crops. Safe roads. Successful fishing trips. Health without modern medicine. Their daily lives weren't quite as desperate as the widow's, but they were on the same spectrum. They understood helplessness not as an abstract theological truth but as a lived experience.

---

## Our Modern Self-Sufficiency: The False Wealth

But step onto a morning train in Tel Aviv. Look around. Everyone has headphones in. Each person is absorbed in their own specialised world.

All of us have built something the widow never had: layers of protection. Our bank accounts. Health insurance. Professional networks. Retirement plans. Emergency funds. Education. We have learned how to make ourselves "un-desperate" and feel secure.

Our world isn't just more secure than theirs — it's vastly more complex. There are thousands of professions now where there were dozens then. Thousands of ways to invest resources and spend your time. We are rich in alternatives and the ability to solve our own problems — or at least to feel like we can.

And here is the spiritual danger: the more layers we build, the less we feel our need for God.

These layers are not evil. A bank account is not sinful. Health insurance is not a lack of faith. The danger comes when the layers become substitutes for God. When we live as if our security comes from our strategies rather than from the One who gives us breath.

No matter how much money we have in our accounts, how indispensable we are at our jobs, we remain creatures, not the Creator. Our days are still numbered. We need food, water, air, sleep — and we cannot add a single hour to our lives. The widow had nothing to hide behind and couldn't avoid this truth. We can avoid it for decades, building such elaborate systems of security that we live as functional atheists — saying we believe in God while our daily lives suggest otherwise.

---

## Faith as Dependence: The Heart of Prayer

Which brings us back to Jesus's parable and the question it forces us to ask: what is faith, really?

We often think of faith as certainty — believing that God exists, that Jesus is Lord, that Scripture is true. And these things matter. But Jesus's parable suggests that faith is something deeper than intellectual agreement with theological propositions.

Faith, in its essence, is recognition and sustained dependence on God.

Look at what the widow does. She has correctly identified where help comes from. She acts on that knowledge. Her dependence is visible in her feet, in her persistence, in her refusal to give up even when the judge keeps refusing her.

**This persistence toward an unjust judge — this is what Jesus says faith toward God should look like.** Not intellectual certainty, but sustained, persistent dependence.

Jesus tells this parable, "to show them that they should always pray and not give up." Prayer, then, is the fruit of faith. We pray because we have concluded that we need God. That we cannot save ourselves. That there is no other help for us.

Listen to Psalm 121, which has been prayed by God's people for millennia: "I lift up my eyes to the mountains — where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth."

From the One who doesn't sleep, the One who watches constantly.

This is what faith looks like in practice: knowing where help comes from and persistently turning there, even through delay.

True prayer isn't about convincing God of anything. God knows what we need before we ask. Prayer is about confessing our dependence. It's about coming back again and again to the One who is our help.

---

## Persistence and God's Timing

If God already knows what we need, and if God is good and loving, why must we be persistent? Why does Jesus tell us we "should always pray and not give up"?

Jesus answers this directly: "And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly."

God will bring justice soon, Jesus promises. But "soon" is measured in God's time, not ours. We are bound to time — we count minutes, we age, we wait. God is eternal. His "soon" is decisive and certain, but the timing is His.

So why persist in prayer if God's timing is His own?

Because persistence in prayer is about remaining in a relationship with God through the waiting. We are refusing to walk away when the answer doesn't come immediately. We are training our hearts to turn to God first, and not as a last resort.

The widow didn't have a backup plan. She didn't diversify her strategy. She kept coming back because there was nowhere else to go.

---

## Conclusion: Will He Find Faith on Earth?

Jesus ends this parable with a haunting question. It's not in today's reading — we stopped at verse 8a — but I cannot help but hear it echoing underneath everything we've said. Jesus asks: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

Think about that question. Not: Will he find churches? Will he find people who believe correct theology? Will he find moral people? But: Will he find faith?

What kind of faith is he looking for? I think he's looking for faith like a widow's conviction. Faith that has concluded its own helplessness. Faith that has nowhere else to go and so keeps knocking on God's door. Faith that persists through silence and delay because it has no backup plan.

And the question presses on us: In lives as distracted and "secure," is there still room for faith?

Or have we made a faith that fits comfortably within our layers — a faith that asks God to bless our plans rather than acknowledging we need Him to live at all?

So how do we, with all our complexity, recover the widow's clarity?

There is only one way: we must see ourselves as we truly are. Strip away the illusions. Whatever our place in society, whether we have many resources or few, we all breathe the same air. We are all mortal.

This is not comfortable. But it is true. And it is, strangely, liberating. Because when we stop pretending to be self-sufficient, when we stop exhausting ourselves building layers to feel safe, when we acknowledge our helplessness — that's when we can finally rest in the arms of the One who has always been holding us up.

You who have come today carrying burdens your layers cannot solve, you who are tired of pretending to be in control, you who are beginning to see your helplessness — there is One who hears, who doesn't sleep, who will bring about justice for you.

Keep knocking. Refuse to go away. Not because God is reluctant, but because that persistent knocking is what faith looks like when it has nowhere else to go.

---

Lord, strip us of our false confidence. Teach us to pray with desperation that trusts Your justice. Give us the clarity when we pray. Make us people who have concluded our helplessness, not as a sad fact but as the beginning of true faith.

Give us faith to keep knocking, not because we are strong, but because we have nowhere else to go. And when Your Son returns, may He find in us that faith — stubborn, persistent, utterly dependent — that refuses to let You go until You bless us.

In Jesus' name, Amen.


A sermon on the persistent widow, the layers we build against helplessness, and what faith looks like when there is no backup plan.

When We Have Nowhere Else to Go


*Delivered at Immanuel Church, Tel Aviv — November 1, 2025*

**Readings:** Luke 17:11–19 · 2 Kings 4:8–37

---

Picture the scene: somewhere along the border between Samaria and Galilee, Jesus encounters ten men with leprosy. Or more accurately, they encounter him from a distance.

"Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

Notice what they don't say. They don't cry out, "Jesus, heal us!" They don't shout, "Jesus, cleanse us!" They use language that reaches higher — divine language. They call him "Master," and they ask not for healing but for _mercy_ — _eleēson_, the same word used in prayers addressed to God himself.

These men already know something about Jesus. Perhaps they've heard the stories filtering through from village to village. Perhaps they've even encountered him before. They know enough to believe that this man can speak into their situation with divine authority.

And they stand at a distance — which is exactly what Torah required. Anyone with such a disease had to live in separation from the community. Whether these ten men followed every detail of this requirement, we don't know. But they maintained their distance. They called out. They lived in the reality of separation that this disease demanded.

## The Torah-Observant Response

Jesus's response might surprise us. He doesn't touch them (as he did with other lepers in the Gospels). He doesn't pronounce them clean. He simply says, "Go, show yourselves to the priests."

They had approached him from within the Law's framework of separation. Now he responds within the Law's framework of restoration. According to Torah, when someone's skin disease healed, a priest had to examine them and officially declare them clean before they could rejoin the community. So Jesus sends them to take that first step — continuing within the same Torah-observant path they'd been walking.

## As They Went, They Were Cleansed

Here's where faith enters the picture.

Jesus didn't say, "You are cleansed — now go show the priests." He said, "Go show yourselves to the priests" — and they went.

And Luke tells us simply: "As they went, they were cleansed."

Look at the faith this required. Jesus gave them a command with no visible change, no immediate proof, no guarantee they could see. And they obeyed. They trusted Jesus's word enough to act on it.

This is the kind of faith Jesus had been calling for all along — the kind his own disciples sometimes struggled to demonstrate. When the storm threatened to sink their boat, he asked, "Where is your faith?" When they couldn't heal the demon-possessed boy, he said, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed..." These ten lepers, standing at a distance, had that faith.

All ten men were healed. All ten received exactly what they asked for — mercy expressed as cleansing. All ten could now complete their journey to the priests and return to normal life.

The story could end here. Ten desperate men cry out to Jesus. Jesus responds. They're all healed. Everyone goes home happy.

## But Only One Came Back

One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus's feet and thanked him.

And then Luke adds a detail that would have shocked his first readers: **This man was a Samaritan.**

For Jesus's Jewish audience, this wasn't just about ethnicity. Samaritans weren't simply foreigners — they were people with the _wrong_ theology. Wrong temple (Mount Gerizim instead of Jerusalem). Wrong scriptures (only the Torah, rejecting the prophets). Wrong understanding of the covenant. They were seen as heretics who had corrupted the true faith.

Jesus notices: "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?"

Think about what Jesus is highlighting here. Nine insiders who knew the scriptures, who grew up in the covenant community, who had correct theology — they kept going. One theological outsider, one who had the "wrong" beliefs about God, turned back.

The man with incorrect theology got the relationship right. So what made the one leper return? What did he understand that the nine missed?

## The Right Posture

To answer this, let's go back in time and look at the story of the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4. This happened in the time of Prophet Elisha, he was travelling through the region on his prophetic work, going from place to place as God directed him. The Shunammite woman and her husband happened to meet him on a few occasions and offered him their hospitality. They weren't seeking him out for help — they recognised a holy man of God passing through their town, fed him and at some point decided to build him a room as an act of reverence and hospitality. Without being asked. Without expecting anything in return.

When Elisha asks what she needs, she essentially says, "Nothing. I'm content." It's Elisha who insists on blessing her, and through God's power, she conceives and bears a son — God's gift, precious beyond measure.

Years later, that boy suddenly dies. She travels to find Elisha. When she reaches him, she falls at his feet and won't let go. She will not settle for less than God's man coming to her house.

This woman's request is bold, and probably very emotional — she wants her dead son, God's promised gift, restored. Elisha comes and shuts the door of his room. He and his servant pray. He stretches himself over the boy. The child's body grows warm. The whole process takes time, and it's not easy for the prophet. Then, the boy sneezes seven times. He opens his eyes.

And then Elisha calls the Shunammite and says to her, "Take your son."

Watch what she does at this moment.

Does she rush to embrace her child? Does she check his breathing, examine him, make sure he's truly alive? Does she immediately begin caring for him?

**No. First, she bows.** She falls at Elisha's feet in worship. Before she even looks at her restored son, before she touches the miracle that has just occurred, she acknowledges the man of God.

This woman isn't a prophet; she has no special spiritual training or religious authority. But she has something more important than credentials: **She has the right posture toward God.**

She understands that there is nothing in all creation — not even the resurrection of her beloved child — that compares with the presence and power of God. The gift must point her to the Giver. The miracle is not the end of the story; it's an occasion for worship.

## The Uncomfortable Mirror

The Shunammite woman shows us what the returning leper understood. But before we see what made him different, let's consider where we actually find ourselves in this story.

I've heard it preached many times with a familiar application: The nine who didn't return represent our neighbours, friends, and family members — the ones who claim to believe in God, who pray when they're desperate, but never show up at church or Bible study. They receive God's blessings and disappear back into their everyday lives. And we, sitting here, are like the one Samaritan who came back to worship and give thanks.

But I wonder if that lets us off too easily.

Most of the time, **we** are the other nine at best!

Think about it: We're trained in obedience. We're well-read in scripture. We have good instincts about daily situations. We have solid worship habits.

And yet — here's the hard truth — we can do all of this while losing focus on the main reason we're here at all.

All ten lepers were doing everything right, according to the Law and Jesus' own instructions.

The nine aren't condemned for disobedience. They got back their religious obligations and normal life. They received the gift and kept walking.

And we do this too — perhaps especially those of us who are serious about our faith. We go to church. We read scripture. We serve. We pray. We're "going to the priests" in a thousand ways, fulfilling religious obligations, doing what seems right.

But are we dwelling in God's presence? Are we bowing before the Giver?

## What Made the One Different

The returning leper understood something the others missed: **He had encountered God himself.**

He saw his healed skin and recognised not just what had happened, but **who had done it.** Like the Shunammite woman, he understood the right posture — bow first, before anything else.

So he turned back. He came to Jesus, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus's feet in complete recognition of who stood before him.

This is what worship is: the proper response to seeing God truly.

And he was told: "Rise and go; your faith has made you well."

## Saved, Not Just Healed

Wait — weren't all ten made well? All ten were cleansed. But notice the word Jesus uses when he speaks to the one who returned.

Luke describes all ten being "cleansed." But when Jesus speaks to this one man, he uses a different word — a word that means not just healed, but made **whole**. It's a word that carries both physical and spiritual restoration, the kind of complete healing that touches not just the body but the soul.

This is the same word Jesus uses throughout Luke's gospel when something deeper than physical healing has occurred — when he speaks to the woman caught in adultery, to the woman who touched his cloak, to the paralytic lowered through the roof. Each time, he's pointing to a restoration that goes beyond the visible.

All ten were cleansed. But only the one who returned was made completely whole and received something far greater than he'd imagined when he cried out for mercy: restoration to God himself.

"Your faith has saved you." Not your ethnicity. Not your religious credentials. Not your Torah obedience. Not even your correct theology. Your faith — the faith that saw past the gift to the Giver, that recognized God and responded with worship, that chose to dwell in his presence rather than simply collect his blessings.

## Where We Find Ourselves

So bring everything to God this week. Bring the foolish requests and the profound ones, ask God to send you the bus when you need it, to get your beloved healthy and to keep us in peace and everything else, big and small.

But when your prayers are answered — and they will be, in God's wisdom and time — remember the Shunammite woman. Before you rush to enjoy the gift, bow first. Acknowledge the Giver.

Because the difference between being healed and being saved is this: whether we see the gift or the Giver, whether we get what we came for and leave or discover that dwelling in God's presence is what we needed most all along.

**And our Lord, Jesus Christ, stands waiting patiently for us to turn around, come back, and dwell with him.**

In the name of the Father, who visits us; the Son, who saves us; and the Holy Spirit, who opens our eyes to see. Amen.


A sermon on the ten lepers, the one who returned, and the difference between being healed and being saved.

Lepers in Samaria and Galilee


*Delivered at Immanuel Church, Tel Aviv — August 16, 2025*

**Readings:** Luke 11:1–13 · Genesis 18:20–32 · Colossians 2:6–15

---

## Opening

Brothers and sisters, today's readings invite us to think about how we pray, how we trust, and how we forgive.

Jesus' disciples once asked, "Lord, teach us to pray," and what he gave them was a formula and a way of life: a prayer that touches our deepest needs and transforms our outlook on God and our neighbour.

The words of this prayer are familiar, yet in Luke's Gospel the prayer is shorter. It begins simply with **"Father."** In Matthew, however, we find the longer version beginning with _"Our Father."_ Early Christian writings like the _Didache_ also preserve this prayer, showing how central it was from the very beginning of the church's life. Whether Luke or Matthew, the spirit of the prayer assumes that it is communal. We never pray alone; whenever we call upon God as Father, we are standing alongside countless others who call Him by the same name. From the first pages of the Bible, beginning with the story of creation, we see that humanity is one family — descendants of Adam by flesh and, through faith, children of Abraham.

---

## Boldness in Prayer — Abraham and the Friend at Midnight

In Genesis we hear Abraham's bold intercession for Sodom. Notice how daring he is: he bargains down from fifty righteous to just ten. And he does so not for himself but for strangers. He already knows God, and therefore he dares to ask. Prayer, then, is not timid; it is a wrestling with God's justice and mercy. Abraham calls himself "dust and ashes," yet he still speaks — because God has chosen to listen.

Jesus echoes this boldness right after teaching the prayer. He tells the parable of a neighbour who knocks at midnight until he gets bread. Shameless persistence, Jesus says, is how we should approach the Father. _"Ask, and it will be given; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened."_ This parable becomes even more vivid when we read it alongside how Abraham welcomed the three visitors, going to great lengths to serve them. In both stories, the request is not for personal hunger but for hospitality — for the sake of others. Abraham prepared a feast for strangers; the neighbour in the parable begs for bread to welcome a guest.

We are called to pray with that same audacity: not shy, not selfish, but brave enough to ask for others as well as ourselves. And when we pray for one another, we are no longer just individuals bringing lists before God — we are becoming the church, the family of God, bound together in intercession.

---

## A Childhood Memory — Desire and Blindness

When I was a little boy in Russia in the early nineties, I longed for things we did not have. Advertisements on TV showed a different world: children eating Snickers bars, families enjoying Uncle Ben's pasta. I wanted those things desperately, without noticing the struggle of my parents, who were working hard simply to provide bread on the table.

Just like that, we can be so consumed by our own requests that we do not notice the needs of others. Abraham teaches us a different way: pray not only for yourself but for those you may never meet. Ask for your brother, and your brother will ask for you. In this, our prayers intertwine, and we become a family under God.

---

## The Practice of Interceding for Others

There is a saying I once heard from a Russian monk who practised hesychasm (a repeated prayer). Struggling with pride, he was advised to change his repeated prayer. Instead of always saying, _"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,"_ he began to pray: _"By the prayers of those who love me, have mercy on me."_ It is a strange and humbling shift. Instead of focusing only on his own voice, he learned to lean on the prayers of others.

This practice comes from a different theological framework than ours and is shared here as an illustration, not as something we adopt. But it carries a truth: we should not stop praying ourselves, yet sometimes we must trust others to pray for us. Jesus himself, in the garden of Gethsemane, asked his disciples to keep watch and pray with him. They failed, falling asleep, but their presence shows us something important: if possible, prayer is not meant to be carried alone. Even the Son of God wanted the prayers of his friends. And though those disciples failed that night, perhaps our brothers and sisters will not.

When our own words run dry, when we feel desperate or too weary to pray, we may rest in the assurance that others are carrying us. This is what "Our Father" truly means — we are sustained by the prayers of one another. And when we say _"Our Father"_ together, we may think of the great cloud of prayer that surrounds us: brothers and sisters in every part of the world, some of whom we will never meet.

One of the important missionary efforts of Immanuel Church is very simple: we keep our doors open and we talk to people who enter. Sometimes a visitor comes into Immanuel Church, saying he was here twenty years ago, or served as a volunteer, and that he still prays for us. We are blessed by hundreds, perhaps thousands, who are lifting us before God even now. Think about that when you say _"Our Father."_

---

## Daily Bread — Trust for Today

Having reflected on Abraham's intercession and on how others may carry us in prayer, we now turn to the most basic of petitions in the Lord's Prayer. After speaking boldly for strangers and trusting the prayers of our brothers and sisters, we are reminded that prayer is also simple: asking God for what sustains life today.

Bonhoeffer once warned that hoarding shows a lack of trust. The manna in the wilderness spoiled if people tried to save it overnight. In the same way, our worries about tomorrow rarely help. If we can act, we should act — finish the task, help a neighbour. But when we cannot, anxiety only traps us in a circle of helplessness, as we are trying to control what is not ours to control.

Daily bread prayer brings us back: it is God's world, God's time, and God's provision.

---

## Forgiveness — Receiving and Sharing Mercy

Next, Jesus teaches us to pray, _"Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us."_ This is perhaps the hardest line. Forgiveness is not a simple feeling, but a hard choice and a process. It may begin in our hearts, but it should eventually manifest itself outwardly through actions.

Paul in Colossians reminds us that God _"forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness; he nailed it to the cross."_ This is the source: we forgive because we have been forgiven. We forgive not because others deserve it, but because God's mercy has first reached us.

Forgiveness is a command, not an option. Jesus underlines this again and again: _"If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you."_ (Matt. 6:14). To love is to forgive, and love in Scripture is always action, never mere sentiment. Two weeks ago, we reflected that love is not only a feeling but a force that transforms action. Forgiveness works the same way — it moves us from resentment to generosity.

And forgiveness can manifest itself through many actions. My personal touch is this: if you are struggling to forgive someone, ask yourself how you can help that person, how you can ease the burden for him or her. By doing so, you promote love, and forgiveness becomes one of the fruits of love, as Paul wrote.

---

## Core Message

**Because God is our Father, we may pray with bold trust for today's needs, and we are called to extend the forgiveness we have received.**

This is the identity we carry: children of God. It means to pray with boldness like Abraham, to depend daily on God's provision, and to forgive as those whose debts were nailed to the cross.

---

## Conclusion

So let us pray as Jesus taught — not rushing, not hoarding, not clinging to grudges, but living as children of a generous Father. As we go from here, let us carry these images with us: Abraham daring to plead for others, the neighbour knocking until bread was given, the manna reminding us of daily trust, and the cross where our debts were cancelled. When worry rises, recall the prayer for daily bread. When bitterness stirs, remember the forgiveness we have received. When fear holds you back, remember that God welcomes bold prayer, even from dust and ashes.

And remember too: it is **Our Father.** We do not walk this road alone. We carry one another in prayer, and others carry us. That is the mystery of the family of God.

Let us close by saying together the Lord's Prayer, as both our plea and our practice, as it is recorded in the Gospel of Luke:

> Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.
> Give us each day our daily bread.
> Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
> And lead us not into temptation.


A sermon on the Lord's Prayer — bold intercession, daily bread, and the forgiveness we receive and share.

Our Father


*Delivered at Immanuel Church, Tel Aviv — April 26, 2025*

**Readings:** John 20:19–31

---

## Peace Be with You!

שלום עליכם!

These are the first words Jesus says to his frightened followers after his resurrection. His disciples, eleven minus Thomas, are hiding away in the upper room, where all twelve were present less than a week ago to hear "This is my body."

A lot has happened since the disciples were in that upper room earlier in the week:

- Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples, and twelve became eleven.
- Jesus was then put on trial, and Jerusalem, which had welcomed him as a king a few days before, shouted, "Crucify!"
- Jesus was raised on the cross, died and was buried.

Then, some women told them all that they had seen Jesus alive again. Peter saw the empty tomb, and finally, Cleopas and his companion rushed in to say they had met Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

And now, back in this upper room these frightened, confused followers of Christ hear the words שלום עליכם, Peace be with you. It must have felt overwhelming!

These words aren't Jesus just saying "hello"; these words fulfil a promise Jesus had whispered to his disciples only four nights earlier:

> "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you… Do not let your hearts be troubled."

## Peace Forged in an Empty Tomb

The peace Jesus gives to his disciples is not the tranquillity of always having safe circumstances: Jerusalem is still dangerous, and Pilate and the Sanhedrin are still hunting for them.

But instead, it's the peace, the shalom that comes from having already broken the spine of humanity's oldest enemy, Death:

You may know the wonderful quote from one of St John Chrysostom's sermons,

> "Christ is risen, and death is overthrown!
> Christ is risen, and life reigns!"

But if death itself has actually been defeated, what power do lesser threats truly hold for each of us here this morning?

## Peace for Ordinary People

The room where the disciples are sitting could be described as a catalogue of human inadequacy — fishermen, a former tax collector, men who fled at the critical hour, two dusty travellers fresh from Emmaus, and likely some of the women who first saw that the tomb was empty, and all of these people weren't powerful, but they were hiding away in this room scared and frustrated. Weeks later, the Sanhedrin will go on and publicly dismiss this crew as "unschooled, ordinary men," yet even the council had to admit: "they had been with Jesus."

So what makes them special? Their only credential is Jesus himself. Jesus is the One who chose them. This collection of people will later become known as the ἐκκλησία, the Church.

And to that assembly, Jesus gives three things: peace, a commission, and the Holy Spirit.

## Peace Be with You Today

The time has passed, and in our turn, Jesus called us to join his ἐκκλησία.

The Church that Jesus founded is a new kind of community. And it's built on different foundations than any other community in our city. Here in Tel Aviv, this reality stands out quite well. It's not built on human foundations. It's built on Christ. Where else in this city can you walk in, enjoy a coffee or a snack, and feel safe just as you are? It's a space without demands, welcoming everyone coming in good faith.

For many of us who grew up in Christian cultures, we might take this for granted. But in our context, this sacred space becomes something extraordinary — a place where we meet our brothers and sisters in Christ. It's a place where we meet our family. It's a home. Our church is the one room where everyone can breathe the words that Jesus still speaks:

> "Peace be with you."

Even today, Jesus proclaims peace over the fearful, footsore, and the penniless, over men and women alike in his church. Our sole qualification for receiving this peace, like it was for those disciples back then, is that Jesus has called each one of us. This is both our blessing and our responsibility. Jesus has given us his peace to go out into the world and to offer God's peace to everyone we meet, by inviting them to come into his new community of peace, which is his church.

## The Great Commission

This is what Jesus said to his very first disciples:

> "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."

Jesus didn't merely comfort his frightened disciples with peace — he immediately gave them purpose and a commission. They are "to go and tell the people about this new life." They are to proclaim the peace that only a risen Lord can give, and they are not to go alone.

Before his crucifixion, Jesus promised his disciples, "I will not leave you as orphans" and spoke of sending the Comforter. This giving of the Holy Spirit fulfils that promise — Jesus didn't just commission them to go and then leave them to do it all by themselves but instead he equipped them with his very presence.

When we became part of Christ's church, we have inherited both that same mission and that same promise. The words Jesus spoke that evening are for us: "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."

Think about this: the same authority that sent the Son into the world now sends us. The same purpose that guided Jesus — to seek and save the lost, to proclaim good news to the poor, to set the captives free — now guides us.

The same Father who sent his Son now sends us through the Son.

But how can ordinary people like us fulfil such an extraordinary calling? The same way those first disciples did — not through our strength or wisdom, but through the gift that Jesus gave immediately after commissioning them, His holy Spirit.

## The Gift

Have you experienced the presence of God's Holy Spirit in your own life? The Holy Spirit comes as a gift in the purest sense — not as a reward for courage or faithfulness (which had faltered) but as freely given grace. Jesus doesn't list prerequisites or demand qualifications. He simply breathes on them and says, "Receive." This gift requires no conditions, just the willingness to accept it.

In that moment, Jesus reverses the disciples' spiritual poverty. They have nothing to offer except their need, precisely where his gift meets them. The Spirit comes not because they are worthy, but because Jesus is generous.

## What Does Receiving the Spirit Mean?

The disciples were fearful; the Holy Spirit made them courageous. They lacked understanding; the Spirit enlightened them. This pattern continues with us today — the Spirit completes us precisely where we fall short. As Paul discovered, God's power is "made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Our inadequacies become the very spaces where God's Spirit works most visibly.

As many of you know, I'm looking for a new job. I hate this process. I opened LinkedIn and saw that some companies boast of hiring only "the top 1% of engineers" or "the best of the best."

This got me thinking about our human tendency to measure worth by ability. Society tells us that everyone must be "good at something," which simply isn't true. Some people struggle with nearly everything they attempt. Others may excel in areas the world values, but these supposed talents are merely temporary conditions, not intrinsic qualities.

The truth is, none of us created whatever abilities we might temporarily possess. Any skill we have today could be gone tomorrow through injury, illness, or simply the passage of time. As the apostle Paul reminds us: "What do you have that you did not receive?" (1 Corinthians 4:7)

If you've seen my car, you understand that I'm not the best driver, yet I'm the right person to drive my son to school. I require the Holy Spirit even when dealing with a knife at home — I lack precision with my hands.

My prayers are quite primitive. I need the Holy Spirit when cutting vegetables, driving my son, and working with a computer. I must admit I need the Holy Spirit every moment of my life.

I don't trust myself in anything, but I trust the Lord and His promise.

This is the beautiful paradox of Christian life: we're most useful to God when we recognise our complete uselessness apart from Him. Our culture's obsession with excellence and achievement directly contradicts the economy of God's kingdom. The world says, "Discover your talent and leverage it." God says, "Recognise your emptiness and let me fill it."

Our omnipotent God could accomplish anything without us — He spoke the universe into existence without assistance. Yet He chooses to work through our inadequacies and limitations, making us co-workers in His kingdom precisely when we acknowledge that we bring nothing of our own to the table.

## From Receivers to Messengers of Forgiveness

This brings us to perhaps Jesus's most astonishing gift in that upper room — the authority to forgive sins.

> "If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

At first glance, this seems impossible. Who are we to forgive sins? Only God can do that. Yet Jesus entrusts this proclamation to imperfect messengers like us.

The key is recognizing that we don't generate forgiveness; we announce it. The forgiveness itself was accomplished at the cross when Jesus said, "It is finished." What we carry is the responsibility to proclaim this truth that has already been won.

Through the Holy Spirit, we become living temples where God's wisdom about both forgiveness and judgment can be expressed. This is both a profound gift and a sobering responsibility.

For each of us, there will be moments when the Holy Spirit will ask us to speak difficult truths — sometimes to those we love, sometimes to those in positions of power. The hardest application comes when we look in the mirror. Sometimes we must learn to forgive ourselves when shame binds us to failures Christ has already covered. Other times, we must withhold easy self-forgiveness when genuine repentance hasn't taken root. Both require discernment that only the Spirit can provide.

What qualifies us for this ministry? Nothing except that Christ has called us and breathed His Spirit upon us. Our inadequacies don't disqualify us — they create the spaces where His power is perfected.

So today, as we carry Christ's forgiveness into a world desperate for reconciliation, remember that we go with His peace. Not a shallow tranquillity dependent on circumstances, but the deep שלום of knowing that death itself has been defeated. In our weakness, His power. In our inadequacy, His sufficiency. In our fear, His peace.

Peace be with you. !עליכם שלום

Amen.


A sermon on the peace Christ gives to ordinary, inadequate people — and the commission that follows.

Peace Be with You


*Delivered at Immanuel Church, Tel Aviv — March 15, 2025*

**Readings:** Luke 13:31–35 · Philippians 3:17–4:1 · Jeremiah 17:5–10

---

## Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the place like no other: it's the only city that exists simultaneously here, on earth and in Heaven. The city after God's liking. Medieval maps placed Jerusalem at the very center of the world, and in many ways, it remains at the center even today.

Jerusalem remains a beacon of hope, a sacred place of worship, a focus of political struggle, and sadly, often a battleground. The name itself contains עיר (city) and שלום (peace) — the City of Peace. Yet since Jesus walked its streets, Jerusalem has changed hands more than twenty times. What an irony!

## Immanuel Congregation and Jerusalem

It's not easy to speak about Jerusalem from within the Holy Land. Every person here has an intimate relationship with the city. For us, Jerusalem is not a mere idea or a story; it's not stones, hotels, or tour guides.

It's a living testimony of our ultimate foundation: Jesus's Sacrifice, death, and resurrection. On many levels, this is the reason for our presence here today, both in the Church and the Holy Land.

## Jesus's Lamenting Is Alive

In our Gospel reading, we hear Jesus's heartfelt cry:

> **"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing."**

God, a master of past, present and future, laments over Jerusalem not just two thousand years ago, but standing from within his eternal now.

When we look at Jerusalem today, we still see division and tension. Jesus's lament echoes through the centuries and remains as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago. What follows this lament is even more striking — a prophetic declaration about Jerusalem's future that will forever change how we understand our relationship with God.

## Empty City

> **"Look, your house is left to you desolate."**

Yes, the temple is going to be destroyed. Yes, the whole city is going to be in ruins. Yes, the Jews are going to be expelled and permitted in only one day in a year: 9th of Av, to mourn. But Jesus was revealing something even more profound.

Jerusalem had functioned like an embassy of God's Kingdom on earth, but now God has withdrawn his presence. The embassy is left in ruins and only one wall is standing. There is no place to bring a petition or negotiate.

## No Visa Required

The destruction of Jerusalem and its temple was indeed catastrophic. The sacred center, the place where heaven and earth met, was lost. Yet, even in this apparent disaster, God wasn't abandoning his people — he was transforming their relationship with him. The physical center was changing, but God's faithful presence and promises remained.

As Jesus predicted Jerusalem's desolation, he was simultaneously establishing something new. God was extending his kingdom beyond walls and borders, beyond one holy city to encompass the whole world.

This is why Paul could confidently declare in our Philippians reading:

> **"Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ."**

This is the astonishing truth of the gospel: We no longer need special visas or permits to access God's presence, and we don't need to make pilgrimages to a physical embassy. Through Christ, we have been granted full citizenship rights in God's kingdom.

When the temple veil was torn from top to bottom at Jesus' crucifixion, it wasn't just fabric that was split — it was the barrier between humanity and God. The embassy model was replaced with direct citizenship.

## Rights and Duties

Being citizens of God's Kingdom comes with both privileges and responsibilities. The disciples listened as Jesus laid out the constitution of this new Kingdom through his teaching, parables, and healings.

The picture is becoming increasingly grim: Jesus demanded radical transformation. Love your neighbors, yes, but also love your enemies. Forgive not just once but seventy times seven times. No shortcuts, no loopholes, were permitted.

The disciples asked the question we all wonder: "Who then can be saved?" Jesus's answer reveals the very nature of our heavenly citizenship:

> **"With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."** (Matthew 19:25–26)

This was a complete reversal of their expectations. They had lived under Roman rule, awaiting a Messiah to drive out the oppressors and establish a new earthly power. Instead, Jesus taught them about a different kingdom: one that starts in the heart and transforms its citizens from the inside out.

The constitution of this kingdom isn't just a set of rules to follow — it's a new way of being. A way that is only possible through God's power working in us. This was difficult for the disciples to digest, and it remains challenging for us today. Yet this is the reality of our citizenship in God's kingdom.

## Walking as Kingdom Citizens

As citizens of heaven, we face a practical question: What does this citizenship actually look like in our daily lives? Is it about paying spiritual taxes or serving in God's army? Not quite, but close! It's about defending the truths of God's Kingdom, sharing what we have with others, and, as Paul urges in Philippians 4:1, "standing firm in the Lord."

This wonderful Citizenship isn't just a legal status, it's our identity. Think about how we describe ourselves: husband, wife, parent, child, friend. These roles matter, but first and foremost, we are Christ followers. This identity shapes everything else about who we are and how we live.

And here's the encouraging promise Jesus gave us:

> **"I am with you always, to the end of the age."** (Matthew 28:20)

We don't follow a distant ruler. Christ isn't far away in some heavenly throne room, detached from our struggles. No, Christ walks beside us every day.

## Symbols of the Citizenship

We in the Middle East are privileged to live in a society where faith is often openly displayed. Religious symbols and practices are visible everywhere, expressing people's beliefs and values and ensuring that others understand what to expect of them.

For us it might not be traditional to wear our faith in bold symbols — perhaps just a tiny cross tucked under the shirt — but shouldn't we also let our true identity shine? Jesus addressed this directly in the Sermon on the Mount:

> **"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."** (Matthew 5:14–16)

This light shines through a life changed by Christ. It appears when we:

- Choose patience when frustrated
- Stay honest when dishonesty is an easy choice
- Give generously beyond what's comfortable
- Forgive even when the hurt is still fresh
- Do not ask for the debt to be returned

The words we speak about our faith only gain their power from the lives we lead. This everyday testimony, shown through our actions **and words**, is the beginning of "standing firm in the Lord."

## Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

We're approaching Easter, the pinnacle of our Church year. A week before, on Palm Sunday, we remember Jesus entering Jerusalem as crowds shouted, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

Visit Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and you'll witness a powerful contrast. Most of the city continues as normal — trams and cars move through streets, shops open, life goes on. Jerusalem, like in Jesus's time, remains largely unaware.

But something remarkable happens: Christian children gather in scout uniforms on the Mount of Olives. They follow Jesus's ancient path into the city, their drums and voices filling the air with "Hosanna!" Children boldly proclaim the King's arrival in a city that is half ignorant and half hostile.

This living picture connects directly to our Gospel reading: "You will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" And remember Jesus's lament? "How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks." On Palm Sunday, we see this gathering happening — not through political power but through faithful witness.

These young believers demonstrate what true citizenship means: standing firm in both earthly and heavenly identities. Like Jeremiah in today's readings, they speak God's truth despite opposition.

As citizens of heaven in the Holy Land, we share this calling. Whether in Jerusalem or here in Tel Aviv, our lives proclaim that Christ has come, Christ will come again, and through Him, our desolate houses become places where heaven touches earth.

This is what it means to stand firm in the Lord.


A sermon on what it means to be citizens of heaven while living in the land where Jesus walked, died, and rose again.