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If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat;
And if they are thirsty, give them water to drink; For you will heap coals of fire on their heads, and the Lord will reward you. - Proverbs 25:21-22 Dear Northminster, This morning, in our weekly Tuesday Bible Study, we read and discussed 1 Kings 3-4 and selections from Proverbs. As we discussed Proverbs chapters 10 and 25 as a group, Proverbs 25:21-22 jumped out at me in a new way. The group observed how this sounds strikingly similar to some of Jesus’ teachings about retaliations (Matt 5:38-42) and loving one’s enemies (Matt 5:43-28). This time around, however, I was thinking about enemies. I am not sure about you, but I don’t have people I would consider my enemies. Yes, there are people I dislike… I mean, *cough* people I would rather love from a distance. But I don’t think of myself as having personal enemies or rivals. That said, there have been groups of people that I have been told are my enemies. It made me wonder what it would have been like if we had gone into Afghanistan with food, water, education, and sanitation instead of bombs. It made me wonder about building universities in Cuba instead of blockading their resources. It made me wonder about training doctors and engineers in Vietnam instead of destroying their forests and people with Agent Orange. But most of all, it makes me sick to my stomach to see how the government of Israel is keeping a stranglehold on humanitarian aid going into Gaza. “The entire population of over two million people in Gaza is severely food insecure. One out of every three people has not eaten for days, and 80 per cent of all reported deaths by starvation are children,” (source) (source). “Ross Smith of the World Food Program told reporters in Geneva by video that they're getting roughly half of what they've requested since the pauses started Sunday. The WFP says almost 470,000 people are enduring famine-like conditions, with 90,000 women and children in need of specialist nutrition” (source). “Access to food has become increasingly dangerous too, with more than 1,000 people killed since May 27 while attempting to access food, many near militarized distribution sites overseen by the U.S.- and Israeli-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to Gaza's Health Ministry” (source). Last fall, I did a series of two talks about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. (Yes, I know I owe you all the third and final one, I will be planning that for this fall.) Here is a quick refresher on the conflict:
Blessings, Pastor Chris As you know, I am away on vacation this week.
Rather than write you a letter this week, I want to forward you a letter from the Office of Public Witness of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Below is an excerpt from their article "We stand with our immigrant brothers and sisters!" published on June 23, 2025. You can read the article in it's entirety here. "Presbyterians are called to a response due to our history of speaking against government overreach. We have a long history of calling for resistance to any laws or commands that contradict God’s word. Our policy reflects this belief as for centuries we have maintained the belief in being lawful citizens but have also acknowledged that there comes a time for resistance against tyranny. Our policy statement, “Honest Patriotism,” supplies theological and contextual grounding: “The 223rd General Assembly (2018) acts to lift up our church’s long commitments to active civic engagement, responsible citizenship, and prophetic witness; believing these commitments to be rooted in our faithful response to God’s call for Christians to be stewards of creation; and witnessing the corrosion of democratic institutions.” The witness of the church has manifested as many, diverse PC(USA) Presbyterians, members and leaders in all expressions of the denomination, including General Assembly agency staff, have spoken out against federal overreach. We unequivocally condemn the separation of families and the unlawful deportation of fathers, mothers, and children. We condemn the use of the National Guard and Marines on the streets of L.A. as if we were at war. We have rallied with our ecumenical siblings in a series of rallies sponsored by Repairers of the Breach and Sojourners. Therefore, we call Presbyterians to steadfast prayer. Everything we do as people of faith begins and ends with prayer. God is the ultimate deliverer of justice and calls us to join in God’s bringing about the Beloved Community. We seek to discern God’s will for the nation and to ask for peaceful and diplomatic solutions to our problems. We call Presbyterians to disciples in action by:
This is not the way of our God who is impartial and just toward all, a God who left us the timeless charge in scripture to defend the stranger, the foreigner, the migrant, the immigrant and the refugee. “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Genesis 18:2, 19:1; Exodus 12:49, 22:21, 23:9; Leviticus 19:9-10, 33-34, 23:22, 24:22, 25:35-38; Numbers 9:14, 15:16; Deuteronomy 1:16, 10:18-19, 23:7, 24:14,19-21, 26:5,12-13, 27:19; Job 31:32; Psalm 146:9; Proverbs 5:10; Jeremiah 7:5-7, 22:3; Ezekiel 22:29, 47:22-23, Malachi 3:5; Matthew 25:31-46, 22:29; Luke 10:25-37; Hebrews 13:1-2). Blessings to you all. See you on Sunday. Pastor Chris What does the term “Antichrist” bring to mind? Someone diabolically evil? An evil genius hell-bent on bringing about the end of the world? Son of Satan come to Earth to rule over a cowering populace? Nicholae Carpathia from the Left-Behind series? The villain in the book of Revelation? It might surprise you that all of these descriptions are wrong.
The term “antichrist” is used exactly five times in scripture: Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. 20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. - 1 John 2:18-23 1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. - 1 John 4:1-3 6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. 7 I say this because many deceivers who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. - 2 John 6-7 The Antichrist does not appear in the book of Revelation. Some people associate “The Antichrist” with “the Beast” which is in Revelation, but this is an interpretive leap that is not supported in scripture. In this handful of passages written by John, the antichrist is not one character but a description of the way someone acts. (Note: when Antichrist is capitalized, it implies a character; when antichrist is not capitalized, it implies a descriptor.) There is not one antichrist but many (1 John 2:18). An antichrist is one who not committed to the community (1 John 2:19). An antichrist is one who denies that Jesus is the messiah (1 John 2:22). An antichrist is someone who thinks that Jesus did not come from God (1 John 4:3). An antichrist is someone who doesn’t follow the teachings of Jesus and follow his command for us to love one another (2 John 6-7). Simply put, an “antichrist” is someone who is against the message of Jesus Christ. An antichrist might look like a member of the community, but they will not act like it. We are told that there will be MANY people like this: ones who might put a veneer of faith around their words, but their actions will shows that they don’t follow Jesus’ teachings and therefore don’t believe in the message of Jesus. They are deceivers that dress up like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Calling someone an antichrist is not calling them Satan or the son of the devil; it is saying that someone is living a life that is the opposite of the Gospel message. And I believe there are many antichrists in the world today: people would love to use the words of Jesus in scripture not to spread love or hope but to oppress and spread hate. Blessings, Pastor Chris For a moment, I want you all to remember how things felt in November 2020. Zoom was still relatively new but we knew where the mute and unmute buttons were. Covid-19 was still deadly, but we had learned that it was an airborne virus and we didn’t have to disinfect our groceries. People were out of jobs and the future felt endlessly uncertain.
On Thursday, November 5th, 2020, our Session met on Zoom. In that meeting, we voted to become a Matthew 25 Congregation. The Matthew 25 pledge was to, “Build congregational vitality, dismantle structural racism, and eradicate systemic poverty.” That following summer in 2021, we had a long sermon series about this initiative and what it meant nationwide. The following summer in 2022, we focused on what it would look like to focus on eradicating systemic poverty in Metro-Detroit. The key to the Matthew 25 initiative is that it addresses systems in our culture. It recognizes that poverty, racism, and vitality are not a matter of individual morality. Rather, systems keep wealth in some people’s hands and out of other people’s, systems keeps certain communities disadvantaged, and systems keep certain people in power and others away from power. But, most of all, systems replicate themselves. Unless we address the system that is at work creating disparities, the disparities between people will only grow. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, we often want to focus on what people did in order to earn the King’s favor: they fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger in, clothed the needy, and visited those that were sick and in prison - but the King’s disfavor is equally important: the King instructs that the goats be thrown into the burning trash heap where they will perish. What did the goats do? The king answers that they are responsible for what they didn’t do: they didn’t feed the hungry, nor did they give a drink to the thirsty. They didn’t welcome the stranger and they didn’t visit the sick and imprisoned. No qualifications are given. Jesus doesn’t talk about the hungry needing to be working in order to be fed. Jesus doesn’t clarify if the imprisoned are justly or unjustly imprisoned. Jesus doesn’t ask that the sick pay for their care. The stranger (xenos, as in the prefix for xenophobia) is welcomed in without hesitation or reserve. The implication is that in Jesus’s kingdom, the righteous will make sure that EVERYONE is cared for and has what they need to live. While we, as individuals can give to food banks and charities, people in the past realized that the best way to feed the hungry, house the homeless, care for the sick, and take care of the vulnerable was to do these things collectively as a nation. Collectively, we pooled our resources (in the form of taxes) so that the elderly would not be destitute but would have income and healthcare. We pooled our resources so that the unemployed would not starve. We pooled our resources to ensure that children always had enough food in their bellies no matter if they had responsible or irresponsible parents. The hope was that, if we pooled our resources together as a nation, if we ever personally found ourselves in a precarious position, we also would be taken care of. However, last week, legislation passed that will worsen systemic poverty. It removes access to food from the hungry. It put barriers to getting care in front of the sick. It gave money to increase the surveillance and policing of the stranger and money to build camps to imprison them without due process. And it enshrined a system where wealth will be allowed to pool with those who already have wealth while financial security is stripped from the masses. As a pastor of a congregation who is still committed to the Matthew 25 initiative, I can say that this bill is antithetical to the Jesus’ gospel message. However, our mission as a congregation has not changed: the work may be harder and the systems may have strengthened, but we are still committed to eradicating the systems that create poverty. Blessings, Pastor Chris Over the years, I have heard from many of you that you appreciate my Sunday sermons. Often, I have heard you all remark that you think about them during the week. I won't deny that it feels good to hear that my pondering and thoughts about scripture are meaningful to you all; but it is also music to my ears to hear that you all could summarize the main point of what I was trying to convey.
I am picky about sermons. If you have talked to me about them, no doubt you will have heard me remark that my sermon style is partly based off of what I disliked about the sermons I heard growing up: 1) I dislike sermons that start with a generic joke. If I start with a story, it will be based on my experience or that of someone I know. 2) I dislike three-point sermons. I could never remember the three points the pastor was trying to make - so, I try to make one - and only one - point per sermon. 3) Every sermon needs what I call a "so what?" I have heard too many sermons full of flowery or intellectual language that never got to the point. If a pastor can't answer, "So what? Why should I care?" then the sermon is incomplete. Earlier today, I got a proposal back from an architectural firm that we have been talking to about fixing the church's domed hallway roof. I have forwarded the proposal to Session who will be discussing it on Thursday. When we are ready, we will be bringing this information to the congregation; but there is a question I want to ask you all to consider before seeing the proposal: So what? Why should we fix it? Yes, the dome corners are crumbling and are a liability. Yes, this is our building, and we have been entrusted to take care of it and manage its upkeep. Yes, our current model of ministry is based around owning a building. Yes, this building holds a lot of history and meaning for many. But - so what? What part of our ministry is supported by this expense? Why is it worth spending this kind of money on infrastructure rather than a ministry initiative? How is the future and longevity of this community supported or incumbered by this expense? I will be up front with you all: This repair is not going to be cheap. The amount that we will likely need to spend will likely change the trajectory of this congregation for the foreseeable future. Because of that, as a community, we need a rock-solid "So What?" We will likely need to reach out to the wider community and ask for funds in order to do this project; and if we don't have a solid, one-point reason why other people should listen, pay attention, and care about this project, if we cannot effectively communicate why we need to do this to further our calling and ministry, if we cannot come up with a reason other than a sense of duty, we will not be successful. I know this feels scary and uncertain. I know, and I feel that nervous anxiety too. But this is an opportunity to clarify what Northminster's mission is today so that we can follow God's calling boldly and without fear. As I say often, we can't kill the church: we are only asked to walk in faith where we are called - and we are promised that God will be with us even through the darkest valleys. Blessings, Pastor Chris |
AuthorPastor Chris Hallam earned her degree at Princeton Theological Seminary and moved to Michigan to become a pastor. Also trained as a studio artist and graphic designer, with an interest in pop culture and social science, her passion is thinking creatively about the future of the church. Archives
January 2026
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