21 August 2026 - connections

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
they gathered together, and one of them,
a scholar of the law, tested him by asking,
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

This question was more of an actual test than a trap like the previous questions from the Sadducees. All of those attempts to trip him up had failed. That must have made this scholar of the law  sufficiently curious to finally give Jesus an opportunity to explain his own perspective. Asking which commandment was greatest was implicitly also asked how all of the commandments were interrelated. What was the proper hierarchy of importance in all of the many rules and regulations of the law? We know that this was an important question because we see elsewhere that there were many who set commandments in opposition to each other, using some as an excuse to ignore others. For instance, people would use their obligation toward God as an excuse to shirk their duty toward their parents. Or they would use minute points of emphasis in order to discredit their opponents. And there were many other such similar abuses, all of which resulted from making human will, and not the intention of God the final arbiter of values.

He said to him,
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.

The first part of the answer of Jesus was not shocking in itself. It was quite obvious that the Shema prayer, the first of the commandments, the one which people literally wore on their bodies in their phylacteries, was the most important. But knowing this was not sufficient for the Pharisees who often used the importance of that commandment in order to avoid obligations toward the neighbors, and even to justify their own vicious attitudes of hostility and envy toward them. 

Neither was it shocking for Jesus to list love of neighbor as the second highest on the list of divine priorities. Between these two commandments he covered the two tablets of the law given to Moses by God. The aspect of the answer of Jesus that was the most unique and important was said so casually that it might have been easy to miss. He introduced love of neighbor by stating that the "second is like it". If one truly processed in understood the way in which the second was like the first it would no longer be possible for those two commandments to be set against one another. If one took the idea seriously human reasoning could no longer use the law to justify selfish behavior. 

Love of God required love of one's neighbor whom God himself had created in his own image. Love of God, who was invisible, could not be fully demonstrated without loving the neighbors whom one could see (see First John 4:20). The tight connection of these two realities came to a head in Jesus himself. When people failed to love Jesus they demonstrated both a failure to love their neighbor, which was more obvious, but also a failure to love the God who had become incarnate in his person. 

Unlike using God as an excuse, which is relatively easy, it is more difficult to love neighbor in a way that causes us to fail in our obligations toward God. But it is possible. Most often this happens when what that to which we direct our love is not really neighbor, but self. We tell ourselves we love our neighbor when we are choosing something that is really for our own convenience or comfort rather than doing the hard work of loving them as God would have us love them. An example would be not sharing the Gospel for fear of upsetting them, or not intervening in destructive behavior such as addiction in order to help keep them superficially happy. But if our love of neighbor is truly like our love of God we can't be content to love only by half measures. Our own love for neighbor must become like his love for us. It must be the sort of love that seeks and saves and chases down the very last of the lost sheep, bringing others not finally to ourselves, but to the Lord. After all, he himself is the only true hope we have to offer, the only lasting love we have to give.

Then you shall know that I am the LORD,
when I open your graves and have you rise from them,
O my people!
I will put my spirit in you that you may live,
and I will settle you upon your land;
thus you shall know that I am the LORD.

Bob Fitts - Hear O Israel

 

20 August 2026 - guest list

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.

When the guests refused to come at first he tried to appeal to them, explaining that the feast he had prepared was extremely desirable. The ones whom he sent to persuade them were messengers like Ezekiel who conveyed the overwhelming goodness of his plan.

I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you,
taking from your bodies your stony hearts
and giving you natural hearts.

Some simply ignored this second invitation, preferring the mundane tedium of their farms and businesses to a transformative celebration. But others responded with unexpectedly intense intense hostility, laying hold of his servants, mistreating them, and killing them. These were people who found the message of the prophets to be intolerable. They didn't want new hearts because they were convinced the ones they had were fine, and took offense at the suggestion that there was anything wrong. They were so attached to the current state of affairs in their lives that they found the invitation to the banquet to be threatening. The responded violently in an attempt to silence that invitation, trying to mute the voice of their conscience which resonated with its urgency.

Go out, therefore, into the main roads
and invite to the feast whomever you find.’
The servants went out into the streets
and gathered all they found, bad and good alike,
and the hall was filled with guests.

Not everyone responded negatively to the invitation to the banquet. Those who were not already living lifestyles of smug self-satisfaction saw the invitation for the amazingly generous offer that it was. They knew that they had done nothing to deserve it. It had come to them entirely unexpectedly, as sheer grace. Yet even among this group not everyone could be bothered to make an appropriately complete response. 

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

One person thought he could enter the feast unchanged from his daily life in the world. He couldn't be bothered to avoid soiling his garments with sin en route. He seemed to assume that this sort of worldly contamination would not be a problem, even though a wedding was cause to wear the one's best and finest. He didn't realize the necessity of being robed in holiness and clothed with good works. He was like a Christian who failed to bring his baptismal robe unstained into God's Kingdom. The point, of course, is that it was within the realm of possibility for him to keep his clothing clean or to have it cleaned if necessary. And so too for us. Grace makes it possible for us to be cleansed from all of our impurities, as Ezekiel said. What we cannot do is attempt to proceed to the banquet of the Lamb while ignoring the gradually thickening accretion of sin on our spirits. The individual particles of dirt may seem minor. But the indifference that leads us to ignore them shows contempt for the host of the feast.

We may not be among those who are hostile to God's messengers (though it sometimes depends on what and how they preach to us). But many of us are tainted by lukewarm indifference. We take our daily life of farm and business to be primary and God's invitation to be something to be slotted in eventually, when it fits. But the opposite should be true. Even when we do initially recognize the importance of the invitation we still tend to overlook our own need for transformation, preferring to ignore the stains on our souls rather than to address them. Perhaps we do this because the cleaning process seems difficult. But we don't have to do the scrubbing ourselves. Rather we are meant to come to the living water we find in the sacraments to be washed clean therein. Then we use the grace we have received to make our lives correspond to our stated repentence by living in a way that befits guests invited to the heavenly banquet.

A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.

Housefires - Come To The River

19 August 2026 - hiring strategy

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

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

This landowner was both odd and provocative. He went to the the market obsessively, again and again looking for people to work in his vineyard. It seemed that he did this because he cared both about his vineyard and especially about the laborers themselves. It pained him to see some standing there "idle all day" because he understood that their dignity was worthy of a higher purpose.

'Summon the laborers and give them their pay,
beginning with the last and ending with the first.'

The only explanation for the specific instructions for the order that the laborers were paid is that the landowner wanted to be intentionally provocative so as demonstrate something that would not have been otherwise obvious. He was clearly more interested in being generous than in the strict demands of justice. The demands of justice were met, but he was willing to go beyond them when necessary to make sure that no one would be lacking at the end of the day. But he must have had the last receive first because he knew that those hired first would have difficulty accepting it. They assumed on the basis of comparison with what those hired last that they deserved even more than the price on which they had agreed with the landowner. However, there were two things that were true, neither of which was always obvious to the workers. The first was that the landowner desired to employee everyone insofar as possible. If didn't hire them sooner he would keep looking until he could find and hire them eventually. The second was that the landowner desired to give all of them a certain amount, independent of the effort the expended. He did value the work they did in the vineyard, else he would not have engaged them in doing it. But he valued the individuals even more and wanted to make sure that, at the end of the day, no one suffered privation. 

What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?
Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?
Are you envious because I am generous?

We may wonder if such a hiring methodology and payment strategy is truly practical. Wouldn't the word get out, with the result that people would take advantage of his generosity, presenting themselves to his service only at day's end? But notice, he did interrogate those who had been idle all day. Had he discovered that they were trying to take advantage of him we may assume he would have been less eager to set such ones to work in his enterprises. The parable definitely doesn't describe a capitalist system, but neither does it represent a welfare state. It represents something higher than either extreme where the dignity of the individuals involved reigns supreme. 

 

It is precisely this, his concern for the treatment of the workers, that is the thread that connects the Gospel with the first reading, wherein the Lord refuses to tolerate the abuse of the sheep by other shepherds. Whether we are workers in the vineyard or sheep of his pasture his desire is look after and tend us himself. The shepherd who seeks even the one lost sheep is the same Lord whom Jesus represents as the vineyard owner hiring at the last hour. He is relentless in his love for us, refusing to abandon us, and obliterating all obstacles between us. This even includes obstacles in our own hearts, such as greed and envy, that can make us reluctant to allow him to do so. Being and remaining his sheep requires not finding his pastures offensive or intolerable and bolting. We must have hearts like his to receive all that he desires to give us. We must be docile to his care.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
Beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul.

 

Shane And Shane - Psalm 23 (Surely Goodness, Surely Mercy)

 

18 August 2026 - threading the needle

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

 

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

One who is too tethered to this world by attachments may end up like the young man about whom we read yesterday, who was able to live a generally moral life, discover the truth about Jesus, and yet remained unable to take the final steps forward into the freedom offered to him by Jesus. We may think that the problem was with the young man specifically. If so, we underestimate the difficulty of what was asked. The fallen ego is simply too large and the way proposed is far too narrow. Camels are massive. And they are meant to be used precisely to carry other things. Even unladen they aren't going to fit through any knitting needle. Unladen they also all but lose their purpose. The only thing intended for the eye of a needle is a thread. Thus, our egos need a complete transformation from one sort of thing to another if they are to enter the Kingdom of God. The question of the disciples and the response of Jesus makes clear that this is not something that is within our natural capacity.

“Who then can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said,
“For men this is impossible,
but for God all things are possible.”

The point then, as it were, is not about merely removing a few things we are carrying. It is about being transformed by God into threads of the beautiful tapestry of the Kingdom he is creating. Rather than receptacles for worldly things we become docile to the higher purpose of unleashing beauty in the world. This does mean leaving behind things to which we were formerly attached. We recognize that doing so can often leave us feeling sorry for ourselves, with a scarcity mindset.

“We have given up everything and followed you.
What will there be for us?”

This is how things look from the perspective of the self-protective ego that always wants to know, 'What about me?'. But from the perspective of the Kingdom we see things differently. This new perspective begins in baptism and will be brought to completion "in the new age" which will be inaugurated when our Lord returns. In the new age worldly realities will be revealed as mere shadows of deeper and more profound truths existing within the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. The disciples themselves did have had to renounce many earthly goods, and any claim on earthly authority, but their authority as the first leaders of the Church was, if less immediately evident, more important in the grand scheme of history. We may have to give up things or even relationships for the sake of the Kingdom. But even here on earth we already receive compensation that is far greater, if we have but the eyes of faith to see it.

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.

Jesus himself had divine riches beyond all telling and yet allowed himself to become poor so that he could enrich us by his power and presence among us. This gives us confidence that what is impossible for man is possible for God, for whom "all things are possible". What was first accomplished in Jesus can also be accomplished in us. We can have among ourselves "this mind" that is ours in Christ Jesus (see Philippians 2:5). May the Holy Spirit come and help us to experience the renewal of our minds (see Romans 12:2) so that we can live, no longer as beasts of burden, but as citizens of the Kingdom. 

 

 

Matt Maher - Lay It Down

 

17 August 2026 - There is only One who is good

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

Why do you ask me about the good?
There is only One who is good.

Sometimes it is good to ask clarifying questions about why we have come to Jesus. Yes, he is good. But what does that mean? Have we understood the full ramifications of that fact? If it is true that Jesus is good, but that there is only One who is good, how do we respond? Are we content to make Jesus one source of advice and information among others? Do we defer to his teaching when it suits our fancy? Do we enthrone him partially, but not more highly than various idols in our lives? If we are to truly hear the words of Jesus we can't interpret them as if they were merely human words. If we are to be his disciples we must give him the central place in our lives that his goodness deserves.

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

The young man knew that he needed more than a mere external obedience. He sensed that there was a deeper issue that could not be corrected by superficially observing the commandments directed toward love of neighbor. No doubt he had truly believed that he observed all of those things, and yet still felt unsatisfied. He knew that even in obeying them there was something missing, some central unifying element that he lacked. He may have felt as though his efforts were insufficient, diffusing inadequate energy toward multiple unattainable goals. Without being able to put it into words, he may have sensed that he was not adequately able to practice love of neighbor, because his life was not properly ordered to the love of God as expressed in the other tablet of the commandments to which Jesus did not directly refer, but was conspicuous exactly for that reason. Had he been drawn to Jesus precisely because in Jesus he sensed the possibility of making this connection and at last ordering his life toward something eternal? There was a sense in which the second tablet of the law was superficially easy to obey, whereas the first seemed more nebulous. But the presence of Jesus, properly understood, made the first tablet concrete. In doing so it also added a new depth of meaning to the second tablet, since love of neighbor became a way to love Jesus himself. It was in fact the case that Jesus was the missing connection and central point that the young man desired.

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.

It wasn't so much the heroic selling of his goods that was essential. That preamble was just to remove some final obstacles that apparently still tied him down. The main thing the young man needed was the same as the one necessary thing, the better portion that Mary had chosen: Jesus himself. The otherwise abstract and unsatisfying nature of the first tablet of the law took on concrete form in the command to follow Jesus. This was not merely a performance or a ritual. It required giving Jesus the central place in his life, of allowing Jesus to reign in him, giving him the authority to direct his choices, not just once, but in an ongoing way. But sadly, as we so often do, the man chose comfort and familiarity over obedience. He did this even though the he immediately experienced the choice to be sad. We know that when people do decide to put Jesus first they experience just the opposite, as did Zacchaeus, who "received him joyfully" (see Luke 19:5) into his home. Let us not choose sin and disobedience when we know they lead to sadness. Let us instead make our constant choice to put Jesus himself on the throne of our hearts. This is the path, the only path, to eternal life, and lasting joy.

 

Newsboys - He Reigns

 

16 August 2026 - not hearing a no

Today's Readings

(Audio)

 

And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out,
"Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! 
My daughter is tormented by a demon." 

It might have seemed as though Jesus was indifferent to the Canaanite woman, or, worse, in some way hostile to her because of racial prejudice. But though it would have been easy for the woman to assume this, it should not be so for us. The first reading made it clear that God intended to allow "foreigners" to join themselves to him, even to minister to him, becoming his servants. The signs of this plan go back even before the time of Isaiah. We can see it in the divine blueprint of the temple, which had a court intended for the Gentiles. Back further still God's covenant promise to Abraham included the blessing of all nations through his offspring. This was the context of God's plan that Jesus himself came to fulfill. During the time of Solomon the nations came to Israel to seek the wisdom of God. But Jesus was the promised Son of David even more perfectly than was Solomon. Thus his momentary silence before the petitionary prayer of the Canaanite woman had to be something other than indifference or hostility. 

 

The subjective experience of the Canaanite woman must have included the fear that is was precisely because of her nationality that she was not immediately able to find the same access to the healing power of Jesus that others apparently had. No doubt the enemy tried to tempt her into giving up immediately, into assuming that the thoughts of fear and doubt that appeared in her mind were the unchangeable reality of the situation. We face a similar temptation when God does not respond immediately. Our default assumption tends to be that he doesn't care about us. Sometimes this takes the form of us thinking that he doesn't care about this or that specific concern of ours. But we tend to assume the implicit corollary that he would not be indifferent to such a concern if his care for us were real in any meaningful way. Of course, in this way our desires are much like those of children who want what they want when they want it and go on to pout if they can't get it immediately.

There is, however, another way we might and should be like children that is much more dangerous to the enemy and effective in the Kingdom. It is being like the child who refuses to give up because he knows that his parents love him and can provide for him. The situation may still arise where he demands something that would not be beneficial to him. In such a case the parents would not provide him with that particular thing. Yet they would doubtlessly see to it that the underlying need or desire that made the child want that thing, whether happiness, or security, or comfort, or something else, was addressed, to the degree that they were able.

Still we may ask if human parents ever act like Jesus and intentionally place some initial resistance to a request that might have been addressed immediately. The answer to this is yes. Parents often ask children to put in work of their own, even though such work does not necessarily earn the result, so that children can appreciate the value of what they receive. There is often a deeper comprehension that results from persistence and struggle that is otherwise absent.

Although there is an apparent analogy between Jesus and human parents his approach nevertheless also had an aspect that would be inappropriate for human parents. This was his desire to test and thus strengthen the faith of the Canaanite woman. He wanted her to understand that his abundance was not limited by the normal constraints of reality. The only way to believe this was through faith. Faith allowed her to see that apparent barriers and obstacles to receiving the grace and mercy of God were only that, apparent. 

 

Jesus been sent only to the lost sheep. And yet here he was in the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon, showing that his intended destination would not be the only place to receive the grace of his presence. He never denied the possibility of collateral grace for those whom he encountered along the way. It did not require taking food from the children to feed others. There was such an abundance that all could eat and be satisfied. But he did not explain those things for the woman, in an attempt to ease her difficulty. He wanted her faith to reach out and take hold of them. They would thus become more fully her own faith, rather than mere data, data that she would inevitably take for granted to one degree or another. Parents, on the other hand, aren't the object of such supernatural faith, and thus typically ought not test the degree to which their children believe in them. The analogy goes so far as to say that push back and resistance to some requests is sometimes appropriate. But if parents put their children's belief in them to the test it is likely to result only in uncertainty and even trauma. Whereas here, as a result of Jesus testing her, the Canaanite woman was that she was able to achieve a level of faith in him that would have been otherwise impossible. 

She said, "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters." 
Then Jesus said to her in reply,
"O woman, great is your faith! 
Let it be done for you as you wish." 

There is a real way in which faith brings the blessings of the future, of the world to come, and of the life of the resurrection, into the here and now of the present. To do so it must contend victoriously with all the negative thoughts and doubts that try to make us believe that things are hopeless. Paul knew that the mind was a battlefield and that faith required a strategy, which was to "take every thought captive to obey Christ" (see Second Corinthians 10:5).

Perhaps there are strongholds of fear and uncertainty in our minds that are preventing us from exercising our faith to lay hold of the promises of God. If so, let us turn to his word, and not our doubts, so as to build ourselves up in the truth. If we really know that "the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" we won't believe the lie that we have been abandoned. When we are tempted to believe that we have been forgotten we should remind ourselves that God "will not leave you or forsake you" (see Deuteronomy 3:6). We will then have confidence that his plan is not just for some people, not most others while excluding ourselves as we are often tempted to think but rather "that he might have mercy upon all".

 

Phil Wickham - House Of The Lord

 

15 August 2026 - a place prepared by God

 

Today's Readings

(Audio)

 

Mary set out
and traveled to the hill country in haste
to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth.

The story of the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth intentionally parallels the time was David brought the ark of God to the house of Obed-edom. We can hear this in various echoes from one story to the next, but in particular in these proclamations, first of David, then Elizabeth:

How can the ark of the Lord come to me? (see Second Samuel 6:9).

And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

The first ark was meant to symbolize the presence of God among men, his dwelling place on earth. But the second ark was actually in a more literal sense that dwelling place, since  within her womb God himself became incarnate. The ark was not merely a disposable temporary vessel in the Old Covenant. So we can discern that Mary's role was not meant to cease once the child was born or once he was raised. She meant to and did in fact help convey the presence of her son to others even after the Visitation. She helped Joseph to find him when he was missing, having stayed behind in the temple. She helped those celebrating a wedding at Cana avail themselves of his intercession. She was a presence around whom other disciples could gather to experience the presence of Jesus, at the cross, and then later, on Pentecost as they prayed for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We can't describe her role in the early Church as highly active as we might do for Paul or for Peter. But nevertheless it is hard to deny she had a central role. Elizabeth was not misguided when she said that among all women of all times and places Mary herself was the most blessed. It was a fact so incontrovertible that all subsequent generations, if they were honest, would have to acknowledge it, not to her own glory, but rather, to that of God.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me
and holy is his Name.

We know that even in recent centuries Mary still helps the world to experience the presence of her son, whether at Lourdes, Guadalupe, or Fatima. Even as recently as the nineteen-nineties in Slovakia there her presence has been credibly attested, receiving a nihil obstat from the Vatican.

We ought not be surprised at Mary's ongoing role when we consider where and how Ark of the Covenant is described in the book of Revelation.

God’s temple in heaven was opened,
and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple.
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun,
with the moon under her feet,
and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

She was involved in an ongoing way in the spiritual struggle against the ancient serpent, here represented as a red dragon. It was prophesied in Genesis that the offspring of Eve would be the one to crush the head of the serpent. And now the new Adam had clearly involved Mary in the fight. But where Eve was vulnerable and compromised Mary was protected and remained immaculate. Eve was meant to be the mother of the living, but became, in fact, the mother of the spiritually dead. But Mary became the mother of those disciples who keep the testimony of Jesus, the ones who live in the truest sense. She who was now in "a place prepared by God" would from that place continue to intercede on behalf of her children as queen mother of the King of kings and Lord of lords. Her presence continues to matter to us because Jesus intends to bestow his own blessings on us through her. She brings us, safely and securely, to into the presence of her own son, there to help us express our inchoate needs and desires, and to plead to her son that he grant them. 

Mary helped John and Elizabeth connect to the presence of Jesus in a way that would have been otherwise impossible.

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice 

This was not a gift intended for them alone, which is why so many archetypes of salvation history were fulfilled in Mary, demonstrating her ongoing role in the New Covenant of Christ. But perhaps we aren't currently experiencing the joy that Elizabeth and John both knew in her presence, or the fullness of the Holy Spirit that filled the disciples at Pentecost. Perhaps we've been treating Mary more like a devotional decoration rather than a person with whom we can have a real relationship. It is, in the end, only through such a relationship that the blessing she is meant to be for us can be realized. Mother of God, new Eve, and new Ark of the Covenant, pray for us!

 

Songs In His Presence - Bright As The Sun