14 March 2026 - fast and loose

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.

Those who are convinced of their own righteousness have often managed to convince themselves of something they do not believe at a deeper level. Thus, they must meditate, like the Pharisee, on all of the awesome things they do, and use that list to compare themselves favorably to others. Since they have no vested interest in the righteousness of others they more readily see their flaws and tend to despise them. 

The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself

There isn't much room for God in hearts like that of this Pharisee. God's presence is too unpredictable and dangerous to the ego for someone like that to risk opening himself too much to him. Thus, for the Pharisee, God was the recipient of an elaborate show-and-tell of all of the things the Pharisee did right, and how these seemed to make him compare favorably to the rest of humanity. He seemed to imply that if anyone went away justified it ought to be him.

But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’

If we saw such individuals in our own churches we might easily mistake whether it was the modern version of the tax collector or of the Pharisee whose soul was in good shape. There might be individuals among us who do a sufficient number of superficially religious things to appear to be devout. They might not engage in any obvious public sin. They may know the faith well and never fail to check a required box in terms of their practice. By contrast, there may also be people who don't understand the faith so well and whose practice of the faith looks less pristine. Yet it may be these later are the ones who have truly opened themselves to God. Sometimes this is in fact easier for those who have achieved less, since they don't have an elaborate facade to present. They are, as it were, exposed before God. Their need for mercy has not been covered over by various pious practices. Even regular struggle with sin doesn't disqualify them if it makes them aware of their need for God. They often know all too well of their flawed and fallible human nature, against which they are unable to achieve victory apart from God's grace.

I fast twice a week,
and I pay tithes on my whole income.

The fact that the Pharisee fasted and paid tithes ought to have been commendable. But he attributed these good works to himself, rather than God working within him. Thus the power that they ought to have been able to unleash in his life was negated by pride. This is why it is important for us to remember that it is God who produces good fruit within us. 

for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (see Philippians 2:13).

Thanksgiving for the grace we receive helps prevent our good works from inverting us, and directing our focus down toward our ego. It opens us to the presence of God and does not numb us to our ongoing need of his mercy. When we remember that all that we have and all that we are is from him we won't risk running from his presence. Instead we will be motivated to heed the words of the prophet Hosea:

Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD;
as certain as the dawn is his coming,
and his judgment shines forth like the light of day!

Tom Booth - The Jesus Song

 

13 March 2026 - in the first place

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

"Which is the first of all the commandments?"

Without an overriding priority there would be no way to settle a dispute when two commandments appeared to conflict. Thus, for example, we see that some Pharisees would even go so far as to set love of God and love of one's parents in opposition. They did this, not for God's sake, but to provide an easy way out of the responsibility toward one's parents. They gave the appearance of giving priority to honoring God. But their overarching principle was actually based on their egos. They knew the letter of the law, but that letter proved more than able to bring death rather than life, when in the wrong hands.

Jesus replied, "The first is this:
Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!

Putting God first was indeed the correct answer. It wasn't merely a matter of degrees, or a balancing act. Rather all one's love, with one's entire entire, soul, mind, and strength, ought to belong to God. But what then of one's neighbor? Would not such all-consuming love for God cause neglect for our duty toward others? For this reason, Jesus did not stop by mentioning love of God, even though, properly understood, it was sufficient.

The second is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.

Or, as in another Gospel, the "second is like it" (see Matthew 22:39). The greatness of these commandments exists when they are upheld together in harmony with one another. One cannot love God, whom one cannot see, while neglecting those creatures whom he has created in his own image and likeness. Indeed, one cannot even benefit God by loving him. God already possesses all perfections. He commands us to love him precisely so that we can become free, as he is free, to love others. We become like what we love. So, in truly loving God, we must become like him in his selflessness toward his creatures. Without love of neighbor our love for God can slip into subtle forms of idolatry, in which we worship God, not as he is, but rather as we wish him to be. Love for neighbor gives a concrete reality to the externality and otherness that is even more true of God himself. It isn't necessarily convenient, or what we would decide if left to us. Therefore love of neighbor can help purify us of idolatry. 

It is, however, also possible to love our neighbors poorly. We do this when we encourage them to settle for less than all God has for them, when we act as enablers of sinful behavior, like people providing alcohol to addicts. It is often easier for us to help and encourage others toward their immediate goals, even if those goals are harmful. We still see the reward of momentary satisfaction. And we are free to look away when the resultant self-destruction begins to spiral out of control. This is why it is not any love of neighbor whatever to which we are called. Rather, we must love them as God loves them, that is, unto himself. He, the Lord our God and Lord alone, is the goal of our lives and theirs. Only in remembering this do we love in a way that is worthy of the name.

is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.

It was the perfect obedience of Jesus that proved to be worth more than all offerings and sacrifices, both fulfilling them and surpassing them. Because he perfectly brought together in himself love of God and love of humanity we now set aside that whole former sacrificial economy in favor of the one sacrifice of the lamb of God. And not only that, but as we share in the fruit of his sacrificial love we become like him. We in turn becoming offerings to God for the sake of the world.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (see Romans 12:1).

Bob Fitts - One God

 

12 March 2026 - bad influences?

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Some of them said, "By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons,
he drives out demons."

It should have been obvious that Jesus driving out a demon is not something that the prince of demons would appreciate, nor something to which he would give the assistance of his power. But people in the crowd were looking for reasons to undermine Jesus, to impugn his ever growing reputation. They insinuated that he was too good to be true. This was in keeping with people's normal experience of the world. There really was no comparison. There was no one as selfless as Jesus, and none with such power. Because it was not normal they had some level of justification being a little defensive. But they went too far when they refused to recognize the finger of God at work in their midst. To discount that power they made implicit one of their assumptions, which was that real power was more likely to originate from the forces of darkness than elsewhere. Jesus rightly pointed out that their own people drove out demons by means of the same power at work in him. But clearly there was something different about what was happening through Jesus compared to those other exorcists, something that demanded explanation.

Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste
and house will fall against house.
And if Satan is divided against himself, 
how will his kingdom stand?

Jesus was entirely united within himself in his mission to seek the will of the Father and the salvation of humanity. Satan was completely opposed to this plan, and desired to prevent Jesus from his mission of gathering the human race together into his Kingdom. It was the crowds who were lingering between the two ultimate alternatives. Jesus thus reminded them, or tried to, that they were in fact on the same side, or should be, when he asked, "by whom do your own people drive them out?" He tried to demonstrate that the fact that they were scattering what he was trying to gather meant that they and not he were the ones succumbing to the influence of the evil one.

When a strong man fully armed guards his palace,
his possessions are safe.
But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him,
he takes away the armor on which he relied
and distributes the spoils.

The reason Jesus was able to bring freedom was not because he was in league with the prince of darkness, but rather, because he was, at last, one stronger than the prince of darkness. This implied that apart from him the possessions of the evil one were relatively safe. Without him, it wasn't possible to get free on one's own or to make much of a dent in the armor of the powers of darkness. That implied that the only good way forward was not one of dividing people against Jesus, which would only play into the plan of the enemy. The only way was to join him in his mission of gathering. But this meant that Jesus must ultimately be the head, the center, and the cornerstone of the people who were gathered. This implied the need to break free, not only from the devil, but even from one's own ego which would not readily relinquish the leading role in one's life. The stories we make up and tell ourselves are shallow and unfulfilling. The story that can truly captivate and satisfy us is the Theo-drama that God is telling. May we set aside our insistence on creating our own private stories so that we may find our place in the larger meta-narrative of God's good plan.

Hillsong Worship - Stronger

 

11 March 2026 - fulfilled

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.

Not fulfill in the sense of finishing and setting aside. Jesus took upon himself the curses that were invoked by the way the law that had been violated in the past. He himself lived in perfect obedience to the law. He did this, not merely for our sakes, so that we wouldn't have to worry about obedience ourselves, but so that "the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (see Romans 8:4). John summarized the difference Jesus made when he wrote that "the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (see John 1:17). The law was fulfilled by Jesus as though it were waiting on him to finally achieve the purpose for which it was given. 

Circumcision was never meant to be a merely external reality but point to the need of an inner transformation. Yet the law had to content itself with merely external obedience until Jesus came to change our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. People set one aspect of the law against another in order to justify themselves and their behavior until Jesus made it possible for his followers to seek first the Kingdom, which meant taking up their own crosses and following him. We need faith to please God (see Hebrews 11:6) since we know that "to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace" (see Romans 8:6). Our fallen flesh fends for itself. We need access to a higher mode of reality, and a better way of being, to which faith is the doorway. It allows us to share what Jesus did for us, but especially what he now wants to do in and through us.

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.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus deepened and internalized many aspects of the law, from the prohibition against killing, to that against committing adultery, to that against swearing falsely. This helped to illustrate that the point of the law was not merely to regulate external behavior, but to point to the sort of people we should want to become. It contained not only prohibited behaviors. When analyzed, it revealed genuine goods those prohibitions were designed to protect. Yet the condition of the people at the time required that exceptions sometimes be made for the hardness of their hearts (see Matthew 19:8). And these, not the law proper, were set aside by Jesus, as no longer necessary in the new economy of grace.

For what great nation is there
that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us
whenever we call upon him?
Or what great nation has statutes and decrees
that are as just as this whole law
which I am setting before you today?

The law was meant to be received as a blessing, and the people did in fact receive it that way. However, preoccupation with the letter of the law allowed individuals to use it to insulate themselves from God's true plan and intention for them. Jesus incinerated that insulation in the fire of truth so that the law could achieve what Moses had so long ago said that it could: helping to draw near to God. Therefore may we too obey and teach it.

Maranatha! Music - I Will Delight (In The Law Of The Lord)

 

10 March 2026 - attitude adjusment

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”

We may think we're being generous when we suggest seven times as a limit to our forgiveness. But we are actually looking for an upward bound, a maximum that we need never exceed, a final degree after which we are free to cut others off from our mercy.

At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’

The servant had some degree of self-interested, imperfect contrition. He had regret because of the order of punishment that was given. Yet even this imperfect plea was enough to move his master with compassion. He was not forgiven because he managed to manifest some kind of perfect attitude or complete conversion of heart. Up to and including the point that he begged for mercy it would not have been unthinkable for him to treat his fellow servants without it. It was once the master had shown mercy, once he had been forgiven, that change was not only possible, but expected. The mercy of the master ought to have been enough to drive his partial conversion to completion, to move him from self-interested mercy to share in his master's unlimited mercy. At that point he himself had been forgiven an unpayable debt. This experience of mercy that was not limited by the amount of the debt, nor based on performance, nor dependent on anything particularly good or noble about himself as a person, ought to have been transformative. It ought to have been an existential lesson that allowed him to show mercy to others. Indeed, we may speculate that part of the reason the master showed this servant mercy was partly so that he would in turn show mercy to the fellow servants of his who owed him much less than he himself had owed the master. It ought to have seemed easy by comparison, and something clearly expected of him.

His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant!
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,
as I had pity on you?’

When we begin our journey in our own experience of God's forgiveness we often do so with some measure of selfishness mixed in with our contrition. Our initial motivation is not often our inability to show mercy, but our immediate need to receive it. If we try to persist as Christians using only the resources and attitude with which we begin there is a real possibility that we will eventually come up short. We'll hit our seven forgiveness maximum beyond which we will feel free and justified in our selfishness. Even Peter posited such a limit until his own heart was healed by the Lord to go beyond it. We too, if we wish to live as the Lord's disciples, must be healed of the artificial limits on mercy we try to impose. It isn't automatic. In fact, we are sometimes frightened enough by our existential vulnerability to try to assuage our anxiety by getting what we can from this world, and from others. The better way to overcome such anxiety is to experience the abundance of God, beyond all limits, flowing through us into the world. A great example of one who knew this was Daniel could have pleaded for special protection for himself, as one who was genuinely not himself guilty, but who rather took the part of his people, knowing that it was not enough for he himself to be spared if others were lost. 

But with contrite heart and humble spirit
let us be received;
As though it were burnt offerings of rams and bullocks,
or thousands of fat lambs,
So let our sacrifice be in your presence today
as we follow you unreservedly;
for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame.

Vineyard - Help Us Our God

 

9 March 2026 - something extraordinary?

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Amen, I say to you,
no prophet is accepted in his own native place.

People in the native place of Jesus might have assumed that they would have received some kind of special treatment in the positive sense. If he he did mighty deeds in Capernaum surely he would do still more in Nazareth. But although he found such expectations placed on him in Nazareth, he didn't find commensurate faith. In Nazareth the people seemed to think Jesus ought to prove himself. He was simply one from among their number, and they knew, or thought they knew his father. Their assumptions made it impossible for them to come before Jesus with receptive humility, which is the only appropriate attitude in his presence.

It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,
but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.

In the same fashion that the people of Nazareth assumed their own worthiness so too did they reject the idea that the Gentiles would be included in God's the blessings of God's covenant. Jesus sensed this in the hearts. But since it was an important part of his plan, accepting Jesus meant a willingness to let him work how and where he willed. Jesus, therefore, didn't avoid the issue. He provoked them by reminding them of an existing pattern in which God blessed the Gentiles rather than those in Israel through Elijah and Elisha, prophets like himself.

It was often the case that it was often the Gentiles who didn't take Jesus for granted, who did not assume they were deserving, and who were able to manifest an attitude of humility in his presence. The Gentiles did not presume they deserved access to the power that was at work in the Lord Jesus. They didn't write him off because they assumed they already knew everything about him. They were thus able to receive more of what Jesus had to offer.

Yet the inclusion of the Gentiles was not merely for their own sake (for our own sake) but also for that of the Jewish people. By showing that he could work where he was welcomed he hoped to provoke a holy jealousy in his covenant people, drawing them beyond their preconceptions and presumptions, inviting them to empty their cups so as to receive all that he did in fact desire to give them.

"My father," they said,
"if the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary,
would you not have done it?
All the more now, since he said to you,
'Wash and be clean,' should you do as he said."

Our expectations are often are our enemies in the spiritual life. We assume that there is one way which in which God works, or that he only works through certain people, or in certain places or situations. And we thus tend to miss all the unexpected places where he is often active, where he often seems to prefer to work. It is very much as if he is challenging us to be open, pushing back against our tendency to slide into familiarity and routine. Sometimes we'd be willing to put up with this if it was accompanied by some extraordinary and miraculous manifestations. But often the unexpected places are simple ones. We don't, for example, often expect great power to work through the Sacraments. They are familiar to us and we think we know the full spectrum of their possibility. But that is exactly the place where, when we are open, we are the most likely to find the transformative and miraculous power of Jesus at work in our midst.

Kutless - Word Of God Speak

 

8 March 2026 - well enough

Today's Readings
(Audio)

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
“Give me a drink.”

Jesus often acts to bless us by first asking something of us. What he asks may test our assumptions, as when he spoke to one who was both a woman and a Samaritan. And the response he desires may not be literal or straightforward. Yes, he ultimately did want a drink. In his thirst for souls he sought to be quenched by the faith of the Samaritan woman. But for this to happen she first had realize that there was something more and better, something that her life had not provided to that point. Even a rumor of living water was worth pursuing over the unsatisfactory water, water for which she had to expend much effort, but which never truly satisfied her. She had, it seemed, sought to quench her thirst in addictive patterns of behavior demonstrated by her unstable relationships. This was absolutely a well of water that was never going to satisfy her.

for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water (see Jeremiah 2:13).

We can't seek both the broken cisterns and the source of living water. A lesser thirst must give way to a higher one. Trying to satisfy ourselves at the same old wells is going to produce the same results, and leave us too tired and distracted for anything else. But this implies that we must change our patterns of behavior. We tend to push back at this point. We may suddenly become deeply interested in theological disputes that previously seemed abstract, as misdirection away from the inner work we need. It isn't that there is nothing to what we say. We might be implying something to the effect that the hope Jesus offers doesn't apply to us. We worship and must worship on a different mountain. Or so we think.

But the hour is coming, and is now here, 
when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; 
and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.

Whatever limits we place on God are entirely self-imposed and imaginary. He is inviting us to leave behind stale and static worship, worship that is merely performative, or merely unreflective habit, to enter into something that is real, something defined by God rather than ourselves. We are being called, led by the hope enkindled in us by the invitation of Jesus, into true worship. And in this worship in Spirit and truth we even now taste the reality that will one day satisfy us for eternity.

And hope does not disappoint, 
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts 
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Songs In His Presence - Isaiah 12: You Will Draw Water