September 27, 2026 | Jon Brown

The Lord be with you.

Thank you so much.

I'm John, one of the pastors here.

If we haven't met, I'd love to take a fall walk with you.

You can shoot me an email, John J Win at Pillarchurch.com.

We'll make it happen.

I've asked the ensemble to help me a little bit this morning.

I've been humming a tune most of the week, a tune I think you might recognize.

So uh they're gonna sing the chorus of a song.

If you know it, feel free to join them.

Isn't it amazing to have gifted musicians?

Such a gift.

That last little line is the one I want stuck in your soul.

Not just this morning for a sermon or even really just this week as you go about life, but like for your life, Christ was lower still.

It's really fascinating to me all the all of the stories that converge in a sanctuary on a Sunday morning.

I mean, it's a beautiful fall day, we could talk about the weather, but then just just like just underneath that exists the stuff of our lives that maybe we don't always talk about.

What I just think is amazing, Christ is lower still.

That's part of what we mean when we recite the creed and we say he descended to the dead.

Christ is lower still.

That's what the Apostle Paul was getting at in Ephesians when it when it says the one who ascended is also the one who descended, Christ is lower still.

That's what Hans Erzmann Bavazar was trying to get at when he said, when Christ descended, he descended so far that even when we fall, we fall into him.

Lower still.

The song we sang is inspired by a bronze statue.

Do you know this story?

It's a bronze statue of Christ submerged twenty meters below the surface of the water near Portofino.

Anybody been to Portofino?

Me either.

Apparently the Italian artist who made the sculpture, his friend died in a scuba diving accident in this area, and so he made this sculpture.

It's called Christ of the Abyss, and lowered it to the place where his friend had died.

You can't really tell.

Christ is lower still, is the idea.

So if this sermon is long or boring, or if it's long and boring, uh just want you to daydream in that direction.

Lacey mentioned, and we're walking our way together this fall around a theme called the speed of love.

A line borrowed from Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama in a book titled Three Mile an Hour God and a chapter by the same title.

In the chapter, Koyama offers these words.

God walks slowly because he is love.

If he's not love, he would have gone much faster.

Love has its speed.

It's an inner speed, it's a spiritual speed.

It's a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we're accustomed.

It goes on in the depths of our lives, whether we notice or not, at three miles an hour.

It's the speed we walk, and therefore the speed the love of God walks.

Love has a speed, it's an inner speed.

Christ enters into flesh.

He takes on what we are, he walks with us, he descends to us, he's lower still.

Love is lower still.

So we're gonna meander around that in conversation this fall.

For now, I want you to listen to me to a story.

It's a Genesis story.

Babel did too.

And then you get Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, they're called the patriarchs.

Jacob has a boy named Joseph.

Anybody know the Joseph story?

Joseph's the younger of a whole gaggle of brothers.

Anybody the youngest kid?

His old he's kind of annoying.

I'm sure I doubt you're annoying, but he's he was a little annoying.

He uh well his dad, first of all, his dad seemed to like him more than the rest.

Any of the older siblings think mom and dad like the youngest most?

So his dad gave him a like a coat, like a garment.

We we think of it as the coat of many colors.

Who knows why we think that, but anyway.

So he's he's got it, and it symbolizes for for Joseph, like I'm I'm the one.

I'm the one.

Uh which is, you know, that's just kind of how it goes sometimes.

Um Joseph also had some dreams.

You can read about this towards the end of the book of Genesis.

He had some dreams about his brothers, in which the brothers worship Joseph.

Which, you know, sort of awkward to have the dream, but then he goes and tells his brothers about the dream.

And between the dreams and the code, it just that he just got super annoying.

So his brothers were like, let's just, let's just, let's just get rid of him.

So they did.

They did.

They got rid of him.

They uh they they were out in kind of the wilderness and they threw him into a pit.

Thought maybe nature would just take its course.

Lie to their dad about what happened.

He's in the pit, and some business guys go by and they they pick him up, and they, well, that's where the story starts.

Now, Joseph was taken down to Egypt.

And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there.

But the Lord was with Joseph.

And he became a successful man.

He was in the house of his Egyptian master.

And when his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord caused all that was in his hands to prosper, he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge over all that he had.

From the time Joseph was overseer of his house and in charge of all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake.

The blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in house and field.

And his master had no concern over anything with Joseph there except the food that he ate.

Now, Joseph, Joseph was handsome and good looking.

And after a time, his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, Lie with me.

But Joseph refused and said, Look, with me here, my master has no concern for anything in this house.

He's kept back nothing from me.

He's not greater in this house than I am.

He's kept nothing back from me except yourself because you're his wife.

How could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?

And though she spoke to him day after day, he refused to lie with her or to be with her.

One day, however, when he went into the house to do his work and there was no one else in the house, she caught hold of his garment and said, Lie with me.

And he left his garment in her hands and he fled and ran outside.

And when she saw that he left his garment in her hands, she called the members of her household and said, Look, the Hebrew servant whom my husband brought in to us to insult us came to me to lie with me, and he left his garment in my hands, and when I raised my voice, he ran and fled outside.

And she kept his garment in her hand until her husband came home, and she told him the same story.

The Hebrew servant whom you brought among us came into me to lie with me.

And when I raised my voice, he left his garment in my hands and ran and fled outside.

And when his master heard his wife's words, this is how your servant treated me, he became enraged.

And he took Joseph and he threw him into prison, the place where the king's prisoner is confined, and he remained in prison.

But the Lord was with Joseph.

And he showed him steadfast love.

And he gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer.

The chief jailer put all of the prisoners in the prison in Joseph's care.

And the chief jailer paid no heed to anything that happened in the prison because the Lord was with Joseph.

And he prospered.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

It's Genesis 39.

You're welcome to find it if you want.

It's one story in a sequence of Joseph's stories that span Genesis 37 to Genesis 50.

Why do you suppose this story's in the Bible?

Like this is the revelation of God, right?

Like this whole book is telling us about who God is.

And then it's the story of salvation, the big arcing story of the redemption of all things.

Why is this story in the Bible?

Maybe we could moralize it, you know?

Like, let's moralize it.

People have done that.

You know, don't put yourself in situations that could get you into trouble.

We could theoticize it.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

We can do that with it.

Those things have been done, and we could do them.

I'm interested though.

Well, it starts like this.

Now Joseph was taken down to Egypt.

Like, which kind of makes sense if you if you think about like Egypt is below Israel on a map.

Like on a flat map.

Egypt is below Canaan, where Joseph and his brothers had been.

But, you know, I mean, most of us think the earth is round, so there really isn't a down.

You know what I mean?

Okay, but it is Egypt.

Like the people who received this story first, they they we've got Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, on into Moses, and Moses is, you know, the people of God are enslaved in Egypt.

So the people who hear this story, Egypt, Egypt is bad.

Egypt, that's where the bad, like it's that, it's like that line in the New Testament: nothing good can come from Nazareth.

It's Egypt.

It's down.

Joseph was taken down.

And then the author of the story doubles down.

He bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there.

This is a descending story.

It's really not meant to be moralized or even really fiatic.

That's not a word, by the way, I'm making that one up.

It's a descending story.

Joseph is taken down.

Down, taken down, brought down.

I've told you about our friend Phil Hartgrink.

Diagnosed last summer with acute myeloid leukemia.

Had a bone marrow transplant to take care of it.

This summer cancer still in his body.

So another bone marrow transplant to get rid of it this time, cancer still take down.

Taken down, brought down.

Does it ever feel like that?

I know we we show up on a Sunday and you know mostly we we picked out clothes that we thought would be presentable, you know, look good enough, I suppose.

But just underneath the surface of appearances, there's that story you're holding on to, that ache you know, down, taken down, brought down.

You know what I'm talking about?

In the last two weeks, the pillar pastoral team has had at least five conversations with people in our community who are thinking about the end of their own lives.

Thinking about ending their own lives.

Down.

Taken down, brought down.

Does it ever feel like that?

This is a descending story.

And it gets kind of just want to press it farther.

It's not just a description of where he was going.

It's like, do you notice there's no mention of how Joseph feels about any of this?

Like we know, we know uh Potiphar's enraged when his wife lies to him about what had happened, but Joseph, we don't, does it ever feel like there's no room for your emotion?

Like, just keep to yourself, please.

And then, of course, you kind of do have to deal with the the the author of the story makes quite a point about Joseph's integrity.

Like, he he refused day after day, and he just won't consent.

Like, so why do bad things happen to good people?

It just keeps getting worse.

And then did you also notice how the author of the story six times refers to that garment?

Like, what an odd detail to insist on over and over.

The garment, you know, the garment, the symbol, the symbol of favoritism, the symbol of blessing, the symbol of promise, the symbol of hope.

Now taken off, taken away, no hope.

That reminds me of those uh words from Dante's Inferno.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

It just keeps getting worse.

Down, taken down, brought down.

I was listening to a sermon by Tim Keller this week.

I don't know how I happened upon it.

Uh in the sermon, he he he offers these words there's no saccharin sentimental attitude.

There's nothing in the Bible that says, you know, every cloud has a silver lining, or, you know, this looks bad, but actually it's a blessing in disguise, none of that sentimental nonsense.

What we're being told here is that there are bad things, and they are bad things, and they stay bad things.

But in the end, God will bring good effects of them.

Not that we should look at anything that's bad and not say, this is bad.

It's bad.

It's bad, down, taken down, brought down.

Does it ever feel like that?

God, I'm not, I'm not trying to make you feel bad.

Does it feel like I'm trying to make you feel bad?

I think there's what I'm trying to do is create space enough, for honesty enough, to be aware enough.

It's not always alright.

And Christ is lower still.

That's the point.

Did you notice how it goes?

He was taken down, brought down, and the Lord was with Joseph.

The Lord was with Joseph.

They take him and they throw him into prison, and the Lord's with Joseph.

Christ is lower still.

The God who made the world and will redeem all things in the end enters into who we are, what we are, the stories we carry and the aches we have.

He's he descends, he goes down, taken down, brought down, farther down.

He's with Joseph in the ache.

Not just to make his life a little bit better, but to meet him where he is and to redeem the whole cosmos in the end.

We create space for honesty about our own lives in order to open our eyes to the one who meets us there.

Christ is lower still.

Anybody wanted to shout amen?

I would have thought.

So this past week, somebody sent me a New York Times article about a guy named Duncan Robinson.

Anybody know this Duncan Robinson?

He's a basketball player for the Pistons.

He played for the University of Michigan, that's why I was interested in the article.

Duncan Robinson grew up on the East Coast.

I guess he wasn't all that good at basketball.

That's what his coach, his high school basketball coach, said, No, really, he wasn't that good.

He said it was like he was walking around with snowshoes.

Sort of clumsy, I guess.

He went to some prep school and kind of developed a shot, so he got picked up by a D3 college, kind of like Hope or Calvin, I think it's called Williams College.

He could really shoot.

He was really beginning to shoot well, so he up transfers to the University of Michigan.

He plays there from 2015 to 2018 and leads them to a national championship game.

The article is not about Duncan Robinson, it's about his brother Eli.

Did anybody see this article?

Eli's the older brother.

Who could also shoot?

But was on a mental health journey that he he ended up self-medicating.

The night that Duncan Robinson was playing in the Final Four against Loyola in 2018.

Anybody remember this game?

Duncan Robinson is in the warmups before the game, and he looks over by his where his family is seating, he sees his mom and dad, and then there's an empty seat next to his mom and dad.

Starting lineups are announced, still the empty seat.

Game goes on, empty seat.

Eli.

Eli was so drunk that night that when he found an Uber to take him to the game, he couldn't remember where the game was.

And the Uber driver took him to the wrong auditorium.

Eli.

Just couldn't handle it.

Couldn't couldn't do it.

In the article, Robinson says maybe we can all be a little less certain about knowing what someone's going through.

It's important to be in tune with the notion that you just don't know.

Obviously, my brother's situation was extreme, but there's also the reality here that everybody has their own Eli.

Everybody has their own Eli.

Taken down.

Taken down.

Brought down.

Christ is lower still.

Christ descends so far.

Whatever ache you hold, whatever pain you know, Christ.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.