23 August 2025 - but do not follow their example

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

All their works are performed to be seen.

The scribes and the Pharisees were teachers who were often more interested in having the self-image of people who were wise and righteous than an actually acting with wisdom and righteousness. They were so preoccupied with thoughts of how they would be perceived by others that they didn't have a thought of sympathy to spare for the way their preaching might be received. They were too busy acting according to a preconstructed pattern to much notice or care that the burdens they were laying on the shoulders of others were heavy and hard to carry. They didn't even feel the need to attend to the core ideas that they preached themselves as long as they looked right to those around them. And naturally, if they never really tried to carry the burdens themselves, they would have no sense of how heavy others would find them. Their preoccupation with themselves and with their image made them insensible to the needs of others. Such preoccupation always leads to problems, but was especially egregious in the lives of teachers, who needed, not less, but more sympathy, in order to effectively understand the needs of their students and help them to advance.

Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example.

Bad examples did not necessarily invalidate true teaching. There would be a temptation to see selfishness and hypocrisy and react, not against the bad example, but against the valid teaching itself. One could easily imagine that if this is all that was meant by righteousness he might as well dive head first into hedonism and sin, since he wouldn't be missing out on anything by doing so, and would in fact be protesting what he found to be false about such hypocritical teachers. It would take one level of humility to embrace teachings about the path of righteousness at all. But it would take another to receive that teaching from hypocrites and still observe it. Yet since all teachers are human, even those who mean well still end up acting hypocritically at times. And so we must all learn not to reject what is genuinely truth no matter from whom we hear it.

We are called to be concerned with integrity. We must practice. And if we preach we must make even more certain to do so. We must not put burdens on others shoulders with no interest in helping them to carry them. Instead, we must lead them to the yoke of Jesus whose burden is easy and whose yoke is light, who will himself help them to do so. It is all too easy for the tone of a teacher to shift into a mode that is more self-congratulatory than useful. We have no business saying anything at all unless is arises from a genuine concern for others.

Absolutely speaking, the only true teacher, master, and Father is God. The point of caution about titles is that we sometimes forget and imagine that we become little gods ourselves, thinking that we are masters of the truth rather than its servants. But if we can only learn to put service ahead of self-image, doing everything for the sake of our one master, the Christ, we ourselves will remain safe, and even become a useful conduit of the truth to others.

Relient K - For The Moments I Feel Faint

22 August 2025 - I AM, the greatest.

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"

It wasn't a particularly devious question designed to entrap Jesus, necessarily. Though one could see a situation where, to any answer he gave, they would have responded by asking about some other commandment that he didn't mention. But it was more likely they intended to give him an opportunity to summarize his teaching by his answer, positioning the whole in relation to the main themes or priorities. Either way, the answer of Jesus didn't leave any openings for them to wonder about the competing priority of various rules. His answer was comprehensive and exhaustive.

He said to him,
"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

There really ought to have been no doubt that the commandment to love God above all held the first place among all of the laws of Israel. It had been emphasized again and again since it was first received by Moses, and had been implicit even before that. But there may have been a question of how the large number and variety of other commands related to the first and most important one. It was this that Jesus clarified by saying that the second was like the first. Already, before the coming of Jesus, this answer had a certain intuitive logic to it, since humanity was made in the image of God. One could not love God fully without also loving the creature he gave the dignity of his image and likeness. And love of neighbor could not be well maintained without reference to the God who was the origin and destiny of every person. 

One could not, however, love one's neighbor in lieu of loving God, as though there was nothing else to do beyond one's obligations of mercy and justice to others. We saw in the rich young ruler a person who had in fact kept all the commandments pertaining to love of neighbor from his youth and yet was still lacking something important. He could have achieved harmony between the love of God and love of neighbor by setting aside his worldly attachments and following Jesus. Jesus brought together the opportunity to love both God and neighbor in his own person, and through him, the possibility to embrace the world with a unified love that neglected neither God nor neighbor. Jesus was the bridge between God and man who elevated what was possible for humanity in terms of how perfectly they could love God, who had now come so close, and neighbor, whose dignity was now revealed with awe-inspiring clarity as a consequence of the incarnation.

The inseparability of these two commandments became a common theme of biblical writers such as John the Evangelist: 

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen (see First John 4:20).

We Christians are supposed to be recognizable by our love. This means that we need to be more than a spiritual NGO. People should notice that we are not just meeting obligations of justice but that we recognize a greater dignity and destiny in humanity than others, and treat them accordingly, as revelations of the love and the goodness of God.

Jars Of Clay - They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love

21 August 2025 - free to feast

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who gave a wedding feast for his son.
He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast,
but they refused to come.

At first glance an invitation from the king would have seemed like a great option. It wasn't as though there could have been many highly competitive offers. No one was offering free tickets to Disney or an all-inclusive meal at a fancy restaurant. This wedding feast was the only game in town, and it was likely to live up to the hype. Who was better able to provide all that would conduce to joy than the king? And the king would certainly go all out for the wedding feast of his son. 

Some ignored the invitation and went away,
one to his farm, another to his business.
The rest laid hold of his servants,
mistreated them, and killed them.

It wasn't as though the people refused to come because they had something that could compete with king's invitation as an alternative. What they decided to prefer, the work of daily life, was emphatically not in the same category as the joy of a feast. So why prefer it? It must have been possible for them to take some time away from those things had they so desired. It is unlikely that the farm required twenty-four hour supervision or that the business could not be closed down for a few days. But still, the people felt that their daily lives, on the one hand, were reality, whereas, on the other, the celebration of a king they only knew distantly was an irrelevant fantasy. Their daily lives ensnared them as though they were legally bound to productivity and utilitarian value. They did not demonstrate the freedom of spirit required to enjoy a feast. But we too are like this in regard to the invitation to God's Kingdom. We aren't willing to modify our daily lives much in order to accommodate it. When there is the suggestion that we should do so, we tend to feel threatened, as if the king is encroaching on our rights. This is why prophetic voices are often mistreated and killed. And when we don't heed these voices it is at our peril. Although the response of the king seemed harsh it could be argued that leaving the citizens chained to their lives of servitude would have been worse. The destruction of the city opposed to the king could serve a wake-up call, exposing misplaced priorities.

Then the king said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready,
but those who were invited were not worthy to come.
Go out, therefore, into the main roads
and invite to the feast whomever you find.’

The king was set on seeing the wedding feast of his son well celebrated. He would fill the seats no matter what it took. We see the same sort of enthusiasm in him as we do in the landowner who kept looking for laborers for his vineyard until the last hour. Neither was content until every possible candidate had been invited. People might fail to come as a result of preferring their own disordered will to that of the king, but not because of any omission on the part of the king himself. In this he represented the God who desired all to be saved and to come knowledge of the truth.

He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it
that you came in here without a wedding garment?’
But he was reduced to silence.

Although the king desired all to attend the banquet they could not come in any attire. Their old life in the world was one which they had to leave behind, symbolically, by wearing a wedding garment. So too for our own invitation to the wedding feast of the lamb. We are not invited on the basis of the cleanliness of our attire. But we must attend without too much dirt or detritus staining our baptismal robes. And in fact, we must attend without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. But we do this by accepting the grace of perseverance given by Jesus himself.

that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (see Ephesians 5:26-27).

David Ruis - We Will Dance

20 August 2025 - living wage

 

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

The Kingdom of heaven is like a landowner
who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.

The master went out again and again to the marketplace to find laborers for his vineyard. He went and recruited when there was still a full day of work to go. And he kept going back, recruiting even when there was only an hour of work remaining. It's hard to imagine that he had this level of commitment for the sake of the vineyard. It seemed, rather, that he was concerned when he saw people standing around idle all day, looking for an excuse to exercise his generosity. It wasn't so much that he needed their work as that he saw the difference it made to their self-perceived dignity when they were able to put their capabilities to use and fully engage themselves, rather than doing nothing and remaining apparently useless. It was good for the individuals he recruited to have this experience of working toward an important goal, of being caught up in a project larger than themselves. Those who were idle in the market were trapped within themselves, probably introspective about precisely why no one had hired them. But everyone who had been chosen, whenever they were chosen, could infer from that the fact that they were in some way worthwhile. Was this lessened if their work did not, in the end, contribute much? Not if what really mattered was not their output but their willingness to participate. If that was what the master truly valued then it accounts not only for his excessive eagerness in seeking out workers but also for his odd strategy for reimbursing them.

And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying,
'These last ones worked only one hour,
and you have made them equal to us,
who bore the day's burden and the heat.'

If what the master truly cared about was the dignity of the workers, rather than the utilitarian value he gained through their employment, then it is not surprising that he wanted them all to receive a day's wage. He did not penalize those who were only recruited at the last hour since they still needed to in some way account for the whole day and make good on it. Yet he did not feel the need to pay those who began first with more, since what he agreed to pay them was fair, was enough for them to make good on the day. He was really looking to ensure that all of his workers received precisely what they needed. And that was, for all of them, a day's wage. 

He could, perhaps, have simply given some money to those who were idle, rather than insisting that they join the team. Then the workers hired first wouldn't have had occasion to compare themselves with them. But he was interested in more than the end reward. He was interested in helping them make the most of their time, however much remained.

Are you envious because I am generous?

The problem arises when we begin to compare what we receive with what others receive. We tend to make the mistake of assuming that what we receive reflects the value we contribute. But we all have an intrinsic value that is not dependent on what we receive. That we are invited to join the project of the vineyard, and that we receive a reward in the end, are not from us, but rather, from the generosity of the landowner. He himself is generous, and free to dispose of his wealth as he pleases. It is only we who twist it in our minds to make it seem unfair.

However many hours remain, let us thank the Lord for the privilege of being invited to help him with his vineyard. Let us continue to labor until evening falls, knowing that our reward will come, not from what we achieve, but from his goodness. And his goodness is always more than enough.

Andy Park - I See The Lord

19 August 2025 - for men this is impossible

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich
to enter the Kingdom of heaven.

We have seen how hard it can be. The rich young man from yesterday's Gospel demonstrated that his riches did not keep him from keeping the second commandment of the law and loving his neighbor. But they were an obstacle to him fully embracing the dynamic call of the Kingdom in his own life. Insofar as he was allowed to remain at the center and in control of his own life he was able to meet the secondary obligations that the law imposed. But when it came down to the decision of whether or not to follow Jesus he balked. He didn't want to lose his ability to be the final decision maker or abdicate his central place of self-governance. He could entertain the ideas someone like Jesus might present. But when asked to walk away from his possessions for the sake of Jesus he refused and went away sad.

Jesus looked at them and said,
“For men this is impossible,
but for God all things are possible.”

The rich young man was being invited to an undertaking that transcended what was humanly possible for him. But it was not impossible absolutely. Where Jesus gave an invitation there was sufficient grace to accept the invitation. But one needed to receive that invitation in faith, believing in the grace provided enough to overcome the doubt resulting from knowledge of one's weakness. The rich young man chose to believe that he was too tied to his riches, that they were too necessary for him to be happy, that could not give them up and follow Jesus. But he might have believed something else. He was free to do so. It was precisely some vague awareness of the reality of the alternate possibility that made his decision to stay on his current path so sad. If it had been, strictly speaking, impossible, he could have more easily shrugged it off. But it had been possible. And in spite of that he walked away.

Then Peter said to him in reply,
“We have given up everything and followed you.
What will there be for us?”

There were rewards for giving up everything and following Jesus. But they were not such that they would justify doing so in advance. They weren't the sort of rewards that the ego could use to justify discipleship in a cost benefit analysis. Peter had already made the choice to follow Jesus. He put first the Kingdom. And so he was free to receive all else besides. He didn't ask about the rewards first to make sure following Jesus would be worth his while. He sought the giver first and only secondarily inquired about the gifts. The reality of the gifts helped reinforce the idea that, although Christianity involved sacrifice, it led to something that was better than anything one had to surrender along the way. But it was able to lead to this new age was precisely because it led to the reality where the Son of Man was seated on his throne of glory. The greatness of the Kingdom could in no way be separated from the greatness of the King. 

And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters
or father or mother or children or lands
for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more,
and will inherit eternal life.

If we are asked to make sacrifices for our faith let us believe that we are capable of them, up to the task, not because of our strength, but through faith in the grace of Jesus. We can believe that they will be worth it even when our flesh protests and would prefer to keep its current wealth. We need not go away sad.

The LORD himself will give his benefits;
our land shall yield its increase.
Justice shall walk before him,
and salvation, along the way of his steps.

Matt Maher - Your Grace Is Enough

18 August 2025 - what good must we do?

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

“Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?”
He answered him, “Why do you ask me about the good?
There is only One who is good.

There was indeed a direct connection between the good and eternal life. This man sensed that Jesus had a more complete explanation of that connection than he could find elsewhere. But most likely he didn't know why he thought that. If Jesus was just another man like any other, with an opinion, however informed or interesting, why ask him? But since, in fact, Jesus was not like any other person, he attempted to draw out what was implicit in the young man's question.

If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
He asked him, “Which ones?” 

The commandments Jesus specifically mentioned were those pertaining to love of neighbor, the second tablet of the ten commandments. It was as though he was expecting the answer the young man gave, "All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?" Jesus seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt, that he sincerely had kept those commandments, so that he could go on to help him to see what he still lacked.

Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go,
sell what you have and give to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come, follow me.”

The young man had kept the second tablet of the law. But the place where more was needed was specifically in regard to the first. It related to Jesus, and why Jesus was an authority capable of speaking to the question. Jesus was himself the One who was good, and it was therefore by following him that the young man could hope to possess eternal life. In this way he could fulfill the first tablet of the law that pertained to love of God. Once there had been an encounter with Jesus fulfilling or not fulfilling those commandments was determined by one's response to him. He could decide to follow him and find joy, or else go away sad, trying to salvage what he could out of his old life. But there was no way to simply ignore the encounter and still honor God in the way God desired. There was no way to the Father except through the Son. To follow Jesus was to honor everything good in the law, and to find fulfillment of all that the young man had already embraced so far. But to turn aside was akin to giving up, seeing the fully realized ideal he had always desired, but determining that it was too difficult.

When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad,
for he had many possessions.

We can be on the path, doing many things well, and still end up walking away because of our attachments to things of this world. Sometimes the things we are asked to surrender will present us with the illusion that they are somehow worthy competitors to the joy of knowing Jesus and living with him forever. We, especially we who do have worldly abundance, must be especially careful to prioritize heavenly treasure. We must be cautious about becoming so attached to anything on earth that we would ever consider walking away from Jesus just to keep it. In the final analysis such things only present the appearance of goodness. God alone is truly good. He himself is the only reward worth seeking with all our hearts.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (see John 17:3).

God Alone

17 August 2025 - trail blazer

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!

This fire was associated with his baptism, which makes sense. It was promised by John the Baptist that Jesus was the one who would, "baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire" (see Matthew 3:11). However, we also know that baptism related to the death of Jesus since, "all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death" (see Romans 6:3). This was the chalice that James and John naively believed they could drink, of which Jesus assured them, "The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized" (see Mark 10:39).

There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!

His goal was the sending forth of the Holy Spirit, but that in order to do so the Passion was a necessary prerequisite. After all, in the Passion, the obstacles to the coming and indwelling of the Spirit were defeated. It was from the side of the crucified Christ that the living water of the Holy Spirit flowed. Before that, "the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (see John 7:39). There was a death to the old that was first necessary in order that the new could come and find a place in us. Jesus first accomplished this death for us so that he could then make it present in us through our own baptism. He defeated sin in the world and would go on to defeat it in the hearts of his followers who learned to live, not by the flesh, but by the Spirit.

Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?

The transformation that the fire of the Spirit was meant to cause in the lives of Christians was something that required their consent and cooperation. It was not something which they could accomplish of their own strength. But they could very much refuse it through their own stubbornness. The consequence of clinging to things that could not last, and the old life, was judgment. The fire of God would consume all that was unfit to stand in his presence since he himself was a consuming fire (see Hebrews 12:29). Those who kept their eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of their faith, would experience the joy of being transformed in the Holy Spirit, and would be made capable of living together with God for all eternity. Those who stubbornly refused to look away from the ego self would turn out to be "chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire" (see Matthew 3:12).

No, I tell you, but rather division.

Jesus desired his Kingdom and his Gospel to spread like a fire on the earth. And this would result in division between those who accepted the message and those who did not. But this division was not necessarily eternal, not the division between those who would live the life of the Spirit forever and those who would experience judgment in the fires of hell. The divisive aspect of Jesus on earth was important because it helped make more clear where people stood. But it did not imply perseverance of those who at one time accepted him. They remained free to turn away. Nor did it imply certainty of judgment for those who at one time seemed to oppose him, and that for two reasons. The first was that they had time to change as long as their lives lasted. The second was that no one can read the soul of another. There may have been mitigating circumstances resulting in invincible ignorance. Since God desires all to be saved, the existence of this time of division before judgment must be precisely so that Christians can give themselves to spreading the Gospel and eliminating insofar as possible the group of those opposed to God by converting them. It is an obligation even greater than that which we bear to our families on the basis of the fourth commandment. Jesus was in anguish to see the fire of his love fill the world. What about us?

 

Dan Purkapile - Come Holy Spirit