13 June 2026 - no guarantees

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Do not take a false oath,
but make good to the Lord all that you vow.
But I say to you, do not swear at all;
not by heaven, for it is God's throne;
nor by the earth, for it is his footstool;
nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.

The practice of swearing oaths had become so common that a person might have seemed insincere unless he resorted to one. People were expected to provide a level of certainty and assurance that they could not guarantee themselves. But many of the things that people wished to promise were too trivial to directly invoke God and ask for his assistance. So people tried a work around. They wanted to present their speech as more definitely connected to future results than mere creatures could. They thus attempted to insinuate divine assistance indirectly. Thus they could, as they thought, reap the benefits of an oath, and speak with certainty proper to God, without risking the consequences. They may have begun to think of themselves as people who could provide such certainty, even without reference to God or his providential care. No doubt the more they thought that way the more these empty oaths went unfilled. The expectations of others must gradually have eroded to the point where people no longer thought of such oaths as genuine, but more as a baseline of any kind of sincerity. Thus to make a promise without an oath must have seemed like one was not even trying. 

Do not swear by your head,
for you cannot make a single hair white or black.
Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.'
Anything more is from the Evil One."

Jesus insisted that the way oaths were commonly used at the time was an abuse of the purpose for which they were intended, which was to safeguard the public good when it transcended individual interests. Taking an oath upon joining an army, or giving testimony, or taking office, were all such valid cases. But to merely strengthen an individual promise was generally not. He called his disciples to speak with the full knowledge that they were not in control of the future and could not alter its course by using more elaborate formulations of their promises. 

We may not be given to the abuse of oaths ourselves since they are no longer in vogue. But we do sometimes feel pressured to provide more assurance than we can realistically offer. And so make certain assumptions about the ways that the present will connect to the future, for better or for worse, and absolutize these assumptions. We speak as though we are prophets but without any genuine divine inspiration. We allude to vague but unassailable reasons for why the things we say must be true. We try to use our speech to add some certainty in an uncertain world, even if it is only certainty of doom and gloom.

Let's change our strategy of speech so that it reflects the fact the we do not know and can't guarantee the future. This may at first be disconcerting to the world around us which is used to a false sense of calm from people who pretend they can so guarantee it. Yet we may hope that people gradually come to realize that it isn't necessary for us to construct the future with empty words, since the future is in the hands of one much more trustworthy than us: God himself.

Matt Maher - Finished Work

 

12 June 2026 - take my yoke

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to little ones.

God did not choose Israel to be peculiarly his own because they were the largest or most impressive of all nations. It was because "the LORD set his heart on" them. And so it is with us. We don't impress Jesus with our qualifications. It's not that he expects great results from us because of our resume and skill set. It is rather his love for us that enables us to bear good fruit. In fact, he often chooses the under-resourced, those who same ill-equipped or outnumbered, to be his champions, precisely so that his saving power, and thus also his love, is evident. If his choice of us was motivated by something other than love what else could it be? Utility, as though we could provide some benefit? But then he would simply be using rather than loving us. Even when it seems we are putting our natural talents to use we have to remember that we only have those talents as gifts from God. And if we are using them well it is only because of his providential guidance in our lives. But we shouldn't imagine that our skills somehow make it easier for God to do his job. When he works through natural talents it is because he loves us. When he works in spite of their absence it is because he wants to make it clear that he loves us. We are not merely chosen by him once and then left to run our course. We are chosen by him constantly.

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;

Jesus invites us to come to him for rest. But it will be a short lived rest if we stop by briefly and then head elsewhere. We are meant to come and abide with him, to share the yoke of obedience to the Father that he himself carries, in which he himself abides in perfect peace. He has chosen us to participate in his own relationship to the Father, not because it adds anything to him, but because in so doing lies our path to fulfillment. Though it is hard to accept, even the fact that he invites us to share in his sufferings for the sake of his Body, the Church (see Colossians 1:24), is precisely because he loves us, not because there was anything lacking in what he did. He has no need of us. And yet, because his heart has chosen us, he calls us to participate in the saving love that is properly his own. He can think of no greater favor to bestow than to share that which matters most to his heart with his friends.

and you will find rest for yourselves. 
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.

Normally we imagine that we earn rest as a break when we accomplish a days work or a retirement at the end of a long career. But Jesus promises a kind of rest that we can experience and enjoy even amidst our trials and the necessary efforts of life. Our burdens become qualitatively different when they are shared with him, and therefore bearing fruit for the world's salvation. There is so much unnecessary struggle that we can surrender if we will but embrace his gentle yoke. We when do share his yoke and abide in love we eventually arrive at the same conviction as John: "We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us".

Songs In His Presence - The House Of God

 

11 June 2026 - more than a performance

Today's Readings
(Audio)

I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that
of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.

It had to exceed theirs because they were focused on appearances, rather than pursuing a genuine desire for righteousness. They didn't hunger or thirst for it. Rather, they performed it since they were hungry for appreciation and popularity. But that isn't so unusual. A lot of our earlier training in morality comes down to what the adults in our lives notice. We try to be good because we want them to like us. We try to at least not appear to be bad because we don't want to get in trouble. This does yield some legitimate progress in building virtuous habits. But if things remain at this external level we run the risk of growing up to be like the scribes and Pharisees. And that is not enough. It takes more than a performance to enter the Kingdom of heaven. It takes conversion of the heart.

"You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,
You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.
But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother
will be liable to judgment

It is not enough to avoid killing because it is illegal and unpopular. We should be people who do not want to kill, and wouldn't even if we could get away with it. But the trouble is that many of the feelings about others with whom we are angry are not entirely benign. They are actually the beginnings of murder within us. We protest that we don't actually want to kill anyone. But neither are we will to easily abandon such feelings when we feel that others have wronged us. And the logical result of these feelings left unchecked and run amok is murder. We don't want the plant or allow it to grow. But we are unwilling to remove the roots. And yet these roots are worse in a way, since they contaminate the soil of our hearts. Jesus tells us it is not enough to avoid the plant's growth while still fertilizing the roots. We want our hearts to be the good soil for his grace that they are meant to be.

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,
and there recall that your brother
has anything against you,

By the time our feelings have led us to the level of an actual breach of relationship with others things are more serious than we probably realize. We may imagine ourselves as in the right, sufficiently justified to stand by the altar and offer our sacrifice. But something significant in our spiritual lives is already so impaired that corrective action becomes an urgent priority, at least insofar as it lies in our power. It might seem genuinely surprising that God would have us weight our priorities in this way. Wouldn't we finish up at his altar and then go attend to the issue with our neighbors? But the issue is not only external. It is the unforgiveness to which we cling in our hearts that makes our sacrifices unacceptable. It isn't something out there that is a problem that we need to solve. It is ourselves.

Chris Tomlin - Give Us Clean Hands

 

10 June 2026 - to fulfill

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.

Everyone could tell that Jesus represented something new and different. He spoke with an authority that was independent of the merely human traditions of the religious leadership. He did not ground his teachings in statements by this or that famous rabbi. If he wasn't careful people would assume he represented something entirely different from the faith handed down in the books of the law and prophets. Christian heretics would later assert exactly this. They suggested that the God of the Old Testament was a cruel, evil God, and that Jesus Christ, who was instead kind and wise, supplanted him. But nothing could be further from the truth. There were not multiple God's, but one. There were three Persons, but always perfectly united in love.

Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.

This disclaimer was necessary since Jesus was about to launch into a set of teachings where he contrasted what he had to say with what was written in the law. These are the famous antithesis of "You have heard it said" and "But I say to you". Yet what he taught was not going to invalidate the earlier principles of the law. Rather, he was going to bring the inner logic of the law to a more complete fulfillment. He did not leave aside the morality with which the prohibitions of the law were concerned. But rather he asked that his disciples respond not only by avoiding specific actions, but by an cultivating an intense concern for the genuine goods those negative commandments were meant to protect. He called for a fulfillment in the form of a more complete observance of the law that began at the heart. 

When it was noon, Elijah taunted them:
"Call louder, for he is a god and may be meditating,
or may have retired, or may be on a journey.
Perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened."

Elijah taunted the prophets of Baal by insinuating how his lack of presence and power and consistency made him appear more human-like, created in the images of those who worshiped him, than divine. We must not make the mistake of thinking of our God as subject to change and imperfection in this way. We ought not think of him as having changed his mind about bad laws to arrive at better ones. We should not imagine that our prayers convey anything he doesn't know or convince him of anything about which he was previously unsure. That he is unchanging is in some ways intimidating. But the things that are most fundamental to his identity, and therefore displayed with the utmost consistency through revelation, are his mercy and his love. His condemnation of evil isn't going to change. But the reason for that condemnation is because he won't ever let us settle for less than love. Human idols might be content to let us off the hook because doing better is sometimes humanly impossible. But God calls us higher because he has the power to bring us higher, to himself.

Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so
will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.

Our love for the law is not because we are legalistic like the scribes and Pharisees. It is because we love the lawgiver. We know his rules are given to allow his family to flourish and to grow in the image of the God who is himself love.

Chris Tomlin - Everlasting God

 

9 June 2026 - meant to be

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

You are the salt of the earth.

You are the light of the world.

The images of salt and light in today's Gospel are meant to express the necessity of being true to our Christian identity. We are new creations in Christ. But the old self still fights for control. It doesn't always reveal itself in big obvious sins. Often it first manifests in small acts of infidelity to our call as disciples. We simply choose to prefer the lesser goods over the demands of discipleship. We have firmly ingrained habits of a life before we were disciples or before we took discipleship seriously. And we tend to fall back into routines like this unless we make a conscience choice not to do so. This was part of what Paul meant about "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead" (see Philippians 3:13). Salt and light imply that we have a purpose that is now bigger than ourselves. Our value to the world is something more than a rearranging of the pieces of our old life. It is a gift that is given to us in baptism through the new identity we have as sons and daughters of the Father.

But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
It is no longer good for anything
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

We might justify our lack of commitment as disciples by saying that we are at least accomplishing this or that other thing in the world. But if it is not ordered to our God given purpose and aligned with the mission of Jesus and his Kingdom it cannot have a meaningful impact. The metaphorical food will quickly become bland and insipid. Before long it will spoil entirely. 

Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.

We tend to conceal the light of the Gospel as if we were living through an air raid drill. It does have the potential to make us a target of the animosity of others. We're willing to let other less offensively bright lights be seen, but not the one that truly has the potential to light up the whole house. As long as there is still room to slide from shadow to shadow no one complains. But the light of Christ leaves no room for darkness. We conceal the light because revealing it often requires more of our attention than we are willing to commit. We're content to let others see our good deeds so that they may glorify us, in the sense of knowing what good people we are. But the light of God at work within us, light that leads to his glory, is something we are wont to avoid. Too much trouble for too little direct reward is how it often seems. Yet, as with salt, the world without the light of the Gospel is inherently impoverished. It is a place of struggle, mishap, and spiritual injury. The Gospel light might seem like a bit much. But nothing else is even adequate, not if we want ourselves and others to flourish.

What we are being asked is not really so different than what Elijah asked the widow. We are being asked to have faith and make such meager contributions as we are able. But when these are done according to the purpose and plan of God they open up a whole world of grace.

‘The jar of flour shall not go empty,
nor the jug of oil run dry,
until the day when the LORD sends rain upon the earth.’” 

Newsboys - Shine

8 June 2026 - tldr for the Gospel

Today's Readings
(Audio)

There was a sense in the times of the Old Testament that physical and material blessings were a gift from God, and this was in fact the case. Moreover we see in the story of Job the idea that the privation of those blessings was a curse. Job's story revealed that it was not a curse caused by personal guilt. But it was nonetheless seen as a tragedy, something to be endured until material blessings could be restored. There was scant a hint even in Job that an absence of material blessings could yield even more important spiritual goods. Yet who can deny that Job's experience of God's self-revelation, terrifying and humbling as it was, was such a good? The fact that God eventually gave him double for the material blessings he lost was less significant than his spiritual gain. We can see this from the way Job became a vehicle for the redemption of others, those friends of his that had spoken against him. Yet neither Job nor anyone who knew of that story would have been so presumptuous as to call him blessed for what he endured. We can see from his story how much the beatitudes of Jesus really did turn traditional expectations upside down.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart,
for they will see God.

A variety of conditions and dispositions that most people believed meant something must have gone wrong were instead called blessed by Jesus. The absence of material goods (or at least detachment from them) and the absence of temporary worldly mirth could yield better riches and truer joy. A willingness to not attempt to dominate or control through physical or political strength, far from being tantamount to surrender, could yield a greater victory, or better, participation in the only true victory, that of Jesus himself. Somehow it was better for the saints that they have the opportunity to hunger and thirst for righteousness than to live in a perfect world where they could take the satisfaction of those desires for granted. Mercy was not a weakness or a compromise, but the underlying fabric of reality, since it was an imitation of God. The clean of heart weren't naively foregoing pleasures that they might have otherwise enjoyed had they been more savvy. Rather, they were keeping themselves free to receive greater spiritual pleasures. They refused to yet their hearts be obscured by the crud and gunk of lesser illicit pleasures so that they would be clear to perceive the true light shining from the face of God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Many today still consider peacemakers to be people too weak to impose their will on others, seekers of compromise in lieu of victory they cannot attain. But what if peace is actually a better and more permanent goal than victory? What does victory amount to in the end, beyond pride and vainglory, if the land does not enjoy peace after the struggle? Peacemakers, realizing the great good of peace, aren't content to wait for any one side to dominate. Instead, they struggle and strive to convince others to choose peace now rather than later. They tell us that justice can be realized and arguments can be resolved without the need for situations to devolve into violence. They don't allow us to maintain they illusion that one side is necessarily correct just because that side wins. Jesus himself was preeminently a peacemaker. He didn't achieve victory by fighting his adversaries, but rather by converting them. He was expected to be a military messiah. But instead he allowed himself to be put to death so that he could reestablish peace between men and God, and from that basis, between men themselves. Thus the peacemakers are children of God insofar as they share the heart of the Son of God himself.

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you
and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.

Imitating the beatitudes means becoming more like Jesus himself. But the more closely we resemble him the more the world will necessarily feel threatened. The more we suggest that riches are not an absolute good, well, its easy to see what happens. The only reason that the beatitudes could have been so well received when Jesus delivered them was because of how Jesus himself lived and demonstrated them in his own life. Becoming like Jesus is a pleasant cliche until we explain that it means embracing the spiritual ideals present in the beatitudes. Then it becomes threatening. Jesus is the only way to salvation, as we know and proclaim. But his way is this way specifically. The only way this will be plausible to others in our own day is if we actually begin to live it ourselves

An upshot to the beatitudes is that we no longer need to consider ourselves cursed when we get what we don't want or don't get what we do want. They can instead become concrete examples of all things working together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose (see Romans 8:28).    

Rejoice and be glad,
for your reward will be great in heaven.

The Dameans - Beatitudes

 

7 June 2026 - Body and Blood, Fire and Spirit

Today's Readings
(Audio)

"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" 

To give his flesh as bread for the life of the world was a promise that was about as far from what was expected of the messiah as anything could be. It seemed impossible. And if it were somehow possible it seemed ill-advised. This was at least the posture of those who had grown a little too accustomed to living more on bread than on "every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD". The alternative posture was not necessarily one of perfect comprehension. Peter and the others did not understand the why or the how of what Jesus had said. But they continued to trust in his words. They knew that if he had said it he could do it. He could himself become, in his flesh, life-giving bread for the world.

Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you. 

As difficult of a doctrine as the Eucharist is it is far more strange and incomprehensible without the context of the Old Testament. That the Eucharist didn't come out of nowhere was tied to the fact that Jesus was, as John the Baptist pointed out, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It was the sacrifice of the lamb that allowed its life to be offered to God and then shared by those who offered it. But the lamb was only a temporary stand-in while the world waited on the one who could truly offer what the lamb merely signified. 

For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (see First Corinthians 5:7-8).

What is expected of us now that the true lamb of God has been offered? That we keep the feast, celebrate the festival. And what festival is that, exactly? Merely that of the Old Covenant? No, because it was transformed by the Passover meal Jesus celebrated in his Last Supper. During the meal Jesus offered his own Body and Blood as a living sacrifice to the Father. It was the unbloody version of what was about the take place on the cross. In fact, without the Last Supper the cross would not have been recognizable as a liturgical sacrifice. It would have only seemed to be an execution. But that separation of the Blood from the Body of Jesus on the cross was in fact the same offering Jesus made at his Last Supper. And it is the same offering that he continues to make through his priesthood in every valid mass. 

All of the sacrifices offered before Jesus in some way addressed the guilt of sin, but only temporarily and imperfectly. They did not address the root cause. The animals could not really take upon them the sins of others. A lamb could not convey its spotless innocence to those who partook. Even those who anointed their doorposts with the blood of the lamb only deferred death from taking them temporarily. It would still come for them in time. The sacrificial meal could in some sense unite those who received it. But it could not truly bring them together as one Body.

For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink. 
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him. 

The self-offering of Jesus was different. So too were the Body and Blood that with which he desired to feed the world from the sacrificial meals found in the Old Testament. In feeding on Jesus his followers received the true life that was only hinted at in the past. The blood, which contained, as it was thought, the life of the animal, had been reserved for God. Drinking blood was considered an abomination. But now, precisely because it was God's own life that was to be shared, partaking in the Blood of Jesus was not only permitted, but commanded. The sins of those who availed themselves of this sacrifice were truly forgiven. The more they consumed the sacrificial lamb the more the root cause of sin would be addressed and they themselves transformed. It was truly food for the journey, addressing exactly the needs of those who are pilgrims in this world. And where other meals may bring us together, the Eucharist truly makes us one, since it unites all of us to the one Body of Jesus himself.

Because the loaf of bread is one,
we, though many, are one body,
for we all partake of the one loaf.

We have been told much about the promise of the Eucharist. And yet it remains an elusive mystery, since our own experience of it often seems so ordinary. After all the bread and the wine, though transformed, still seem ordinary to our senses. And so too with the transformation that they bring about in us. It is usually not overwhelmingly obvious to us in the moment. But it is real. Therefore we should not grow lukewarm and take this gift for granted. We should come and keep coming to the one whose words are Spirit in life. We need to pray for the faith to see past the humble appearances of bread and wine to everything promised to us by Jesus himself contained within. The more we approach the Eucharist with faith the more we will be open to being transformed by it.

He who eats it with faith, eats Fire and Spirit 
- Saint Ephrem the Syrian

Damascus Worship (feat. MarySarah Menkhaus) - Body And Blood