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

 

 

6 June 2026 - when a little is a lot

Today's Readings
(Audio)

They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext,
recite lengthy prayers.

No amount of religious facade or superficial generosity can take the place of the need for a genuine gift of self. But we tend to be more interested in looking the part than in acting it. We want to be seen as good people but actually being good is fairly far down our list of priorities. As long as others are greeting us and giving us due honor we convince ourselves that we must be doing enough. And when it doesn't feel enough we may pray more, but we don't often give more of ourselves. We tend to make the easy moves, ones that don't really touch the deeper levels of our being. We may have been the sort to wear a What Would Jesus Do Bracelet when those were popular, but without reflecting much on what he would in fact have done. We may sometimes wear a cross or even a crucifix without thinking much about the sacrifice it represents.

They will receive a very severe condemnation.

We may shy away from genuine effort because it often feels so impossible to have a meaningful impact. When we do try to give of ourselves for the sake of God and neighbor it seems so difficult to move the needle in any noticeable way. And we want to gauge whether or not we are actually doing what we ought based on whether or not it yields results. But we should not be so fixated on what we are able to accomplish. The hidden nature of the progress of the Kingdom and the long time horizon in which it takes shape imply that we do not always see the connection between our efforts and their ultimate fruits. We are creatures who can never be in control of outcomes. So instead we must be faithful to do what is our part, to give of ourselves, and trust God to handle the rest.

A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. 

The idea we are supposed to take from this widow is not necessarily that we should divest ourselves of all of our possessions. But we are to entrust our efforts to God just as she did. What is asked of us often feels too difficult when especially at times when it will apparently be of little use to others. But this is precisely the call: to do little things with great love. The little things are not little because they are easy, but because they don't seem great in our eyes. But, as we see this morning, they are great in God's eyes. And he is able to far outmatch our generosity. As we give of ourselves he increases our capacity to do so. It may be that he increases it in a financial sense. But we will certainly grow in love.

Paul expected Timothy to understand this when he commanded, "be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient", whether the effort seems likely to bring useful results or not. It was a call to be faithful in sharing the gift he had received. And although we have different gifts, we have the same call. Let us be faithful to it, so much so that we can say, together with Paul:

I have competed well;
I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.

Nichole Nordeman - You Are My All In All

 

5 July 2026 - the Lord said to my lord

Today's Readings
(Audio)

How do the scribes claim that the Christ is the son of David?

Jesus pointed out an apparent contradiction between a psalm that was widely considered to have messianic connotations and the actual content of that psalm. He did so not in order to disagree with the interpretation of the psalm but rather to shed light on it and unlock it even more fully.

David himself was considered to be the author of the psalm in question. Thus he was person indicated by "my" in the statement "The Lord said to my lord". The two others indicated in the statement were God, "Lord" with a capital "L" and another lord, this one considered to be the messiah who was to sit at the right hand of God. But the messiah was commonly (and correctly) understood to be coming from the descendants of David. Yet David would not address any normal son as his lord. Just the opposite. So something different was happening here. What could account for one who was both David's son and yet his lord? 

David himself calls him ‘lord’;
so how is he his son?”

At another time Jesus explained that there was one greater than Solomon, a son of David, present in his person. He himself was greater than Abraham, the father of the Jewish people. And though he was the descendant of David he was greater even than David himself. This could not have been the case if he was offspring in the normal sense, simply a better version of Solomon, or something along those lines. Lordship is the sense of royalty was never going to produce a son superior to his father and held in honor over him. But what if Jesus possessed Lordship in some other sense? What if the son of David was also the son of the God, and therefore himself capital "L" Lord in the sense of the Lord of all creature? This was never the sort of thing Jesus simply asserted outright. Rather, he hinted at it so that people could make the mental leap themselves as they were prepared to do so. He didn't have to testify to himself, to force feed an audience that was not entirely onboard. All he had to do was set the table. Seeing the feast, the people were happy to eat at his banquet of wisdom.

The great crowd heard this with delight.

We can see that the people had been prepared for the coming of the messiah by the prophecies in the Scriptures. And even Jesus himself chose to demonstrate his messianic claims on the basis of the Scriptures, which were in fact, as he said, written about him (see John 5:46-47). Nor did the Scriptures become obsolete for this purpose after the coming of Jesus, as though his miraculous resurrection rendered the evidence of the prophets unnecessary. It was not the case that once Jesus came the Old Testament could be tidily set aside. Though it may contain much that is shocking, much that is hard to understand, and needs much in the way of context to process, it is nevertheless vital for understanding why Jesus came, what he did, and what he still means to the world. As Paul reminded Timothy:

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching,
for refutation, for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.

By themselves the Scriptures of the Old Testament cannot give us salvation. But our faith in Jesus unlocks them so that they really become capable of giving us "wisdom for salvation". In our Gospel reading we see one such way in which the Scriptures invite us to have faith and faith in turn unlocks the Scriptures. But they are replete with such examples. We may not think them practical for refutation or correction of our contemporaries, who believe themselves to be too sophisticated for what they probably consider to be archaic nonsense. But the wisdom we need is really found therein. We only need the eyes of faith to see it. Jesus invites us to have such eyes open to his revelation. If we learn to do so we too will join the crowd in their delight.

Songs In His Presence - Like A Son Of Man

 

4 June 2026 - in the first place

Today's Readings
(Audio)

"Which is the first of all the commandments?"

This question could be asked in different ways. One could ask in order to find and excuse to neglect the importance of some commandments for the sake of others. Many of the religious leaders in the time of Jesus often did try to pit commandments against each other, using supposed love of God to excuse themselves from their duties to their neighbors. But one could also ask because they wanted their priorities to be determined by God's word rather than their own predilections. They would not ask in order to seek an excuse but in order to be accountable to the truth. They might know well the temptation to twist God's word serve their preferences. But they would desire to be sufficiently armed with the truth to resist that temptation. This scribe is generally considered to have asked with sincerity, impressed by the answers of Jesus to earlier questions.

The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind, 
and with all your strength.

This part of the response of Jesus was in fact sufficient in itself, since it did not leave room for the selfish ego to have any space of its own in which to stand. If one loved God with their entire mind there would be no extra capacity available to resist his duty to his neighbors. If every thought was taken captive to Christ and if one invested his full strength, their very life, into acting on the basis of that renewed mind, there would be no room left for temptation or sin.

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

Although the first part of the answer was, in a way, sufficient, it was not complete without the second part that was like it. How was it like it? Because loving God and loving those made in God's image, as God himself loved them, were the most interrelated ideas imaginable. Jesus added this second part because he knew people's tendency to subvert the first part when it was considered too abstractly without any kind of reality to put it to the test. Love of neighbor was how one could demonstrate and integrate their love for God into daily life. As John reminds us, "he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen" (see First John 4:20).

to love him with all your heart,
with all your understanding,
with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself
is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices

Burnt offerings and sacrifices were offered precisely to atone for failures of love of God and neighbor. But to actually do the thing well and completely was of even more value than such reminders of sin. Even in exile the people already began to understand that spiritual sacrifices had sufficient value to be offered in lieu of the temple sacrifices which were impossible at that time. 

But with contrite heart and humble spirit
let us be received;
As though it were burnt offerings of rams and bulls,
or tens of thousands of fat lambs (see Daniel 3:39).

Still, it wasn't until Jesus came and united his perfect love of God and neighbor to his sacrifice of himself, that burnt offerings and sacrifices were no longer needed. Only after he died once for all could we truly experience the freedom necessary to love God and neighbor with all that we are. This is what Paul was getting at in his letter to Timothy:

If we have died with him
we shall also live with him;
if we persevere
we shall also reign with him.

Bob Fitts - One God

 

3 June 2026 - are you not misled

Today's Readings
(Audio)

And the seven left no descendants.
Last of all the woman also died.
At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be?

At first the challenge of the Sadducees seems unrelatable. After all, it isn't as though we have laws today where a brother has to marry a woman to ensure descendants for his brother. No one is posing challenges to the idea of the resurrection and insisting that we solve them based only on the five books of Moses. And yet this tactic of the Sadducees is really quite modern. It applies a reductio ad absurdum to the very idea of resurrection, attempting to demonstrate that the concept is too naive and simplistic to hold water when subjected to realistic analysis. This is a still a common tactic among modern skeptics. And the resurrection of the body is still a common target. Wouldn't the earth fill up? Hasn't the matter that composed one person's body been in others by now? Who gets it? The list goes on. Further, modern skeptics also limit the means by which an argument for the resurrection can be made. Those who accept any Scriptures do so only on within a system of self-constructed limits based on an interpretive hermeneutic of suspicion. Supposed later redactions do not receive the same wait as some imagined original underlying authorial intent. Others accept no evidence from Scriptures or indeed anything other than method of scientific experimentation. For them we can refer neither to prophets, nor philosophy, nor logical necessity, nor anything else that cannot be demonstrated in a lab environment. 

To all of skeptics ancient and modern Jesus says, "Are you not misled because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?" When we people think they've reduced religion to an absurdity it is because they are thinking as humans, on human terms, with human concepts. They don't have the ability to conceive of what God has prepared for those who love him (see First Corinthians 2:9). The life of the resurrection will not merely be the same but more. It will be qualitatively different, transformed in such a way that many of the current conventions that govern our lives will no longer be appropriate. Marriage was appropriate to ensure the propagation of a species limited by mortality. It was thus an image of the eternity of God, even an icon of it. But once God's own eternity comes to renew and redefine creation the icon will no longer be needed. The portrait on the wall can be remove once the person himself comes to dwell in our midst. Like angels those who rise from the dead will live, not to fight a losing battle against death, but to worship and enjoy the glory of God forever.

As for the dead being raised,
have you not read in the Book of Moses,
in the passage about the bush, how God told him,
I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, 
and the God of Jacob?

From the limited point of view of earthly beings Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, seemed to be dead and therefore gone, no longer related to creation or even to God. Many biblical scholars take for granted scientific ideas like creatures being nothing more than matter, like and impose those apparently mature and rational principles on their interpretation of the bible. They end up with confused ideas about Jesus as just another revolutionary fighter against oppression or as nothing more than a teacher of spiritual truths. But this is because they've never let themselves take a serious look at who God really is, and what claims are made about him. They date the books of prophets after their prophecies are fulfilled because to them prophecy is obviously impossible. They can't take seriously the idea of a God who is truly God, with a transcendent perspective, who fills our world of time without being confined within it.

Given the modern scientific sensibilities it may be tempting for us to be ashamed of the Gospel.  But if so, let us read what Paul wrote to Timothy:

So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord

But, we ask, how can we avoid it? We are not experts. We have the same limited human intellects as that befuddle the skeptics. And so we do. But we also have the mind of Christ (see First Corinthians 2:16). We ought not to rely only on the merely human. We have no excuse for being deceived because we did not know "the power of God". But perhaps we are only vaguely in touch with that power. If so, let us defer again to Paul:

For this reason, I remind you to stir into flame
the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. 
For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice
but rather of power and love and self-control.

Every alternative to the resurrection leads eventually to despair. The modern world is caught up in this despair and only we have the antidote. So we can't hold back because we are ashamed or unprepared. God has given us the key to boldness, equipping us with all we need for the challenges of our times.

for I know him in whom I have believed
and am confident that he is able to guard
what has been entrusted to me until that day.

Maverick City Music - Forever And Ever Amen

 

2 June 2026 - a tax against him

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man
and that you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion.

They absolutely did not believe these complements, but made them in order that the crowd would believe that they actually meant well, or so that Jesus himself would lower his defenses and say something unguarded and objectionable. Yet it was they and not Jesus who were not interested in the truth but instead concerned with the opinions of others. They sought to decrease the standing of Jesus before the crowds while increasing their own. They were not particularly interested in the correct answer to the question, that is, in the truth about this particular case, as long as the answer of Jesus provided fodder to use against him.

Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?
Should we pay or should we not pay?

In theory it was a clever trap. Either Jesus would endorse the tax and be branded as a Roman sympathizer by the common people or he would oppose it and be branded as a potentially dangerous revolutionary by the government. At first the answer of Jesus seemed like a compromise; this for Caesar, that for God, separate, non-overlapping spheres of life, the political on the one hand, the religious on the other. But his answer was not that compromise it might seem to us at first.

Bring me a denarius to look at.
They brought one to him 

It was noteworthy that they had a denarius ready and available, that they were already participants in the Roman system, implicitly accepting its legitimacy to some degree. The very image of the emperor, basically in itself idolatrous, since he claimed to be divine, was already present in their moneybags. The crowds of common people must have noticed this point. And yet, Jesus did not condemn them for having such currency. Governments might not be perfect, as the history of Israel's subjugation had taught, but they could still be supported for the sake of the goods they did provide to society (see Jeremiah 29:4-7). Yet, Jesus did not imply that the economy was an isolated sphere in which one could participate without reference to God.

“Whose image and inscription is this?”
They replied to him, “Caesar’s.”
So Jesus said to them,
“Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
and to God what belongs to God.”

Jesus did not say that it was basically OK to collude with the Romans as long people maintained virtue in the separate arena of private faith. Rather, he insisted that although the coin may have been made in the image of Caesar and with his inscription, Caesar himself was made in the image of God. There was therefore nothing exempt, nothing that did not belong to God, nothing that was not due to him as payment. The important element of this response was how it portrayed the fact that Caesar was not absolute, was not in any sense divine. One could therefore order one's business and interaction with even a state that was hostile to the truth to a higher end than the state itself intended, to the common good of the people, and the glory of God most high.

We know with certainty that the political order will never be perfected, and that the Kingdom while never arrive merely as the progress of nations. We remember that our true citizenship is never in any earthly city, however good or corrupt that city might be, but is rather in heaven (see Philippians 3:20). And because we remember this we have patience, patience like that of the Lord, which is meant to lead to salvation. But all of the imperfection does make us eager for the day when even the heavens will dissolve and the elements themselves will be melted by fire. The mass is always a prayer of "Maranatha!" in which we not only wait for but even "hasten the coming of the day of God". We do this because we look forward to a Kingdom not made with hands (see Second Corinthians 5:1), new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness, properly speaking, God himself, will dwell.

 

David Crowder Band - Here Is Our King

 

1 June 2026 - vineyard crimes

Today's Readings
(Audio)

A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it,
dug a wine press, and built a tower.
Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey.

The man clearly cared for his vineyard and provided all that was necessary for its fruitfulness and protection. The tenants were meant to ensure these things in an ongoing way. But they quickly realized that they could exploit the fruit of the vineyard for their own purposes. They probably came to see the way they used their positions for selfish ends as justified, imaging it to be payment for their efforts. But the vineyard did not belong to them, nor the fruit. There was a proper time and a proper purpose for the fruit. But when that time arrived and messengers came to collect they responded violently. Their egos were wounded by the very idea that they were behaving selfishly, and they lashed out in order to distract themselves from their guilt. 

This parable about the vineyard is about the problems that corrupt leadership can bring. Regardless of the original good intentions behind the vineyard, regardless of the quality of the vines, there could be no abundance of fruit if the leaders were hording it for themselves. The individual fruit might still grow, but could not be well utilized. Thus God addressed himself not only to individuals, but to the corrupt systems holding those individuals back from living fully for their purpose. He could not leave leadership in the hands of those who say, "'My master is delayed in coming,' and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk" (see Luke 12:45). But the way he addressed it was not by responding to the violence of the tenants with an overwhelming show of force. That would be the human strategy. That is what we would probably see as the only option in a case like this. But God instead attempted appeals that appeared to be increasingly unsuccessful.

Again he sent them another servant.
And that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully.
He sent yet another whom they killed.
So, too, many others; some they beat, others they killed.

God kept trying because he cared about the tenants as well as the individuals with whose care they were entrusted. The point was not merely to replace them, but to convert them. He would take action even as drastic as sending his own Son to do so. Those who had failed to recognize how bad they had become in earlier interventions might at least see the problem if they responded to the Son with violent rejection. They might well pierce him first, committed to the sunken cost of their rebellion. But they might look on him whom they pierced and be converted. There was no guarantee since their response still required free cooperation on their part. But it was possible.

We hear a parable like this smugly enjoy the way it critiques, not only the religious leadership of Israel of the past, but even corrupt systems of our own political milieu. Yet while it certainly does critique politics and religious leadership both ancient and modern it also addresses us as individuals. We too have stewardships that we can chose to co-opt for selfish purposes, but that are meant to bear fruit for God. We may not exercise authority of any kind over anyone. But we still have some measure of influence that we are meant to wield for God's purposes. Moreover, we ourselves are in some way both a tenant and a vineyard meant to bear fruit. We can horde that fruit for selfish enjoyment, even to the point of violently protecting our atomistic individualism. Or we can contribute it a greater form of enjoyment in which we and others all share, a truly common good.

After all, the goal of life and devotion is not merely to receive a little piece of divinity ourselves, but to "share in the divine nature". It is not a blessing we can have as isolated egos, since God himself is basically the opposite of an isolated ego. This is basically the doctrine we celebrated on Trinity Sunday. But it does take what seems to be individual effort: "make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love". Yet this effort of ours is predicated on the fact that God has already "bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion", just as with the vineyard prepared so well for the tenants. All he asks is that we remember the reason for the gift and live, insofar as possible, to be worthy of it.

Indelible Grace Music (featuring Matthew Smith) - Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

  

31 May 2026 - the heart of the matter

Today's Readings
(Audio)

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son

God himself gave what he asked but did not require of Abraham. He stayed the hand that would have offered Isaac as a sacrifice but did not hold back from giving his only Son as the savior of the world. We might wrongly imagine God to be someone infinitely rich, rich enough to solve any problem from a distance simply by pouring into it his abundant resources. And we know there are people in our own world that are willing to give of their abundance as long as they never need to get overly involved. But from the beginning God's plan was not to give merely some extraneous resources. It was rather to give himself. The point of his plan was specifically to be involved. Thus we see in his theophany to Moses: God revealed himself in order to be in relationship with Moses and the people.

If I find favor with you, O Lord,
do come along in our company.
This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins,
and receive us as your own.

But what does it mean to be in relationship with God? Is it merely something he adopts because we are relational beings? Or is his existence defined in some way by relationship even apart from the created order? The doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that God is not only acting relational in order to be intelligible to us. Rather he is a set of subsistent relationships himself, always has been, and always will be. The fact that we are relational creatures is not accidental. It is so we can correspond to this deep truth about God. He himself is the primary relationship for which we are made.

Mend your ways, encourage one another,
agree with one another, live in peace,
and the God of love and peace will be with you.

God's very essence is that of perfected relationship, or, in other words, love. That fact means that he doesn't enforce morality on us for external or arbitrary reasons. God is Love. And thus love is the primary principle ordering all of reality down to and including the meaning of our lives as individuals. We are thus called to correspond to the deepest nature of God and the world by being loving individuals ourselves, and insofar as possible being defined by love just as is God himself. The doctrine of the Trinity, far from an abstraction, has real consequences for our lives. If God is the kind of God who enters into loving relationships, and if that is what he cares about, then we are not only meant to be recipients, but also givers of love, since that is what it means to participate in the love that is at the very heart of God's nature. And this is a reasonable definition for theosis, which means becoming God. We don't become God in the sense that we become all knowing or all powerful. But we do become transformed more and more into love itself, both giving it and receiving it.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.

God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world. But the world was required to respond to the revelation it received, and make a choice about whether or not to believe in the Son. There may have been other ways God could have addressed the symptoms of the problems sin unleashed in the world. But he sought to heal our relational nature that was at the heart of the issue. Thus he couldn't stay away or intervene from a distance. And therefore the only answer that would suffice was relationship with him. The possibility of not believing and of condemnation was a consequence of the fact that none of this could be forced. God had no answer to give other than himself. Any other answer, taken to the extreme, would prove to be hell. But he would not and could not compel anyone to accept his offer. Love freely given had to be freely received.

We tend to talk about love and celebrate it in an abstract and sentimental sense. But from the way that the Trinity intervened in human history in the life, death, and resurrection, of Jesus, we see what love really means. It is always the right choice. But it is not always an easy choice. In fact, God came to become one of us because we were so often unwilling to choose love over selfishness. He not only demonstrated how to choose love, but he gave us the Spirit. Filled with the Spirit choosing love consistently and cheerfully is possible, the first of the fruits we are meant to receive from him.

To the glorious God who chose to stoop down and teach us how to love let us repeat the refrain of today's psalm in all sincerity: "Glory and praise for ever!"

David Crowder Band - How He Loves

 

30 May 2026 - tell us what you really think

Today's Readings
(Audio)

“By what authority are you doing these things?
Or who gave you this authority to do them?”

They made it sound like they actually cared about authority or about truth. But they were not concerned with either of these in the abstract or for their own sake. Sure, they probably sincerely believed that Jesus didn't have the right to do what he did or claim what he claimed. They probably believed that Jesus was the one telling people what they wanted to hear and was thus only interested in his own popularity. But they wanted to exploit this, not for the sake of divine law or truth, nor for the sake of bystanders who might believe him, nor to correct him, but instead to sully his reputation. They attempted to exploit the truth in service of ensuring their own popularity to his detriment. 

Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 
Was John’s baptism of heavenly or of human origin? Answer me.”

If they were really concerned about truth they could have answered truthfully with the fact that they considered John and Jesus both to be of human origin. If authority mattered to them they could have also tried to undermine the perception of the authority of John along with Jesus. But John was apparently already too popular for such an attack. They would not say what they really thought for the sake of how it would be perceived. They imagined it was Jesus who was trying to appeal to the crowds but it was in fact they themselves. Jesus was the one speaking truth based on the authority of the Father no matter how others felt about it. We see that he never held back merely to ensure that he was popular. A particular instance of this occurred in the Bread of Life discourse when he refused to compromise on the realism of the Eucharist even though many disciples left him as a consequence (see John 6:66).

They discussed this among themselves and said,
“If we say, ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say,
‘Then why did you not believe him?’
But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?”– 
they feared the crowd,
for they all thought John really was a prophet.
So they said to Jesus in reply, “We do not know.”

The chief priests, the scribes, and the elders were in a state of mind that prevented them from perceiving the truth about the identity of Jesus. They had convinced themselves that truth and proper divine authority were their top priorities. But they were in fact manipulating the truth for the sake of public opinion and popularity. In other words, their egos, and not the truth, were running the show. This is a trap to which it is easy to succumb. It is easy to manipulate the truth to generate feelings of self-righteousness as those religious leaders did. It is easy to use it to project a self-image of ourselves as pious religious individuals. But do we have a genuine concern for the truth? Or is our real goal controlling how others see us? If we can't set our egos aside we won't be able to perceive reality clearly or discern truth from falsehood. Giving priority to the truth means that it stands in judgment on us, and not the reverse. Truth is true whether or not it is popular or profitable. This is why Jesus was such a breath of fresh air. People who tell it like it is often are in a world of people telling us only what they think we want to hear. When they do this selflessly and without ulterior motives they naturally come across as highly credible. 

Then Jesus said to them,
“Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

We often hold back from fully owning up to the false things which we believe so that others can't critique them. But if we can't at least be honest about where we stand forward progress will remain elusive. Yet for us, because of what we have been given, it should be different. Because we strive to build ourselves up in our most holy faith and remain in the love of God our weakness does not lead to despair. Rather, it should help us be sympathetic to others who struggle, just as was Jude in our first reading.

On those who waver, have mercy; 
save others by snatching them out of the fire;
on others have mercy with fear

Newsboys - Not Ashamed

 

29 May 2026 - making room

Today's Readings
(Audio)

The next day as they were leaving Bethany he was hungry.

Seeing from a distance a fig tree in leaf,
he went over to see if he could find anything on it.

Jesus hungers and thirsts for righteousness, and knows that he can find that fruit in season or out of season since the one who trusts in the Lord "is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit" (see Jeremiah 17:8). Thus the Gospel is preached in season and out of season, since it always has the power to bear fruit (see Second Timothy 4:2). There are, however, real consequences, for those who fail to bear fruit. "Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away" (see John 15:2). But who are the ones who fail to bear fruit? They are the ones that choose not to abide in Jesus as branches on a vine. They fail to trust in the Lord and put their trust in lesser things such as money, power, or pleasure. They fill the temples of their souls, intended for the worship of God, with idols, making them dens of thieves.

My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples?
But you have made it a den of thieves.

There is a subtle implication that the people who had surrendered to these base desires did so partially because they failed to make room for others in their hearts. It wasn't only that they failed to make room for God directly, but also failed to share his priorities. Each time they encountered another person who was marginalized or excluded they could have chosen to love him and invite him in to the worship of the one God. Or instead, they could close their eyes to such people, passing by on the other side of the road. But when they ignored what God wanted, what was left but to fill the void with things to assuage their egos? They had to fill that absence with something, and the didn't fill it with what God had offered.

Jesus, as King, has the authority to command us to use our the temples of our souls for the glory of God. As the presence of God on earth, he wants us to make room in our hearts to worship him. But this worship not be self-serving. It must instead be God-serving, reaching out to and inviting others in rather than existing in some kind of isolated euphoric state. When we choose lesser things and fail to bear fruit he does not come at once to destroy the temple. He first casts out the money changers that represent our varied forms of idolatry. We can easily imagine the whip of cords he uses is not going to be a pleasant experience. But it is meant to open space for Jesus himself so that we can become who we are meant to be. In other words, the results are worth the price. But once the temple has been emptied of pretenders we need to fill it with right praise. Otherwise the gift of our being cleansed will be only temporary, and things will revert to an even worse condition than where they started.

Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first (see Matthew 12:45).

If this seems like too much to consider all at once let us finish our reflection with Saint Peter's summary of what it is really all about.

Above all, let your love for one another be intense,
because love covers a multitude of sins.

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

 

28 May 2026 - that I might see

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus,
sat by the roadside begging.

Bartimaeus was blind and realized he was blind. He was not like the spiritual leaders Jesus criticized who claimed and even convinced themselves that they were able to see. Bartimaeus knew he couldn't discover the right path to take through life for himself. Unlike those with spiritual blindness the falls he would experience if he started imposing his imagination on reality were not merely metaphorical, but physical. But we imagine that he also realized something deeply spiritual as a consequence. The fact that he couldn't take the path ahead for granted was something he internalized both physically and abstractly. Others could guide him from one place to another. But few were qualified to tell him where he ought to go or what he ought to do. All he could really ask of others was to beg for temporary assistance to survive a little longer. Until, that is he heard Jesus of Nazareth was coming. 

“Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” 

Jesus offered something greater than the ability to get from point A to point B. But how did Bartimaeus, who was blind, realize what so many others failed to realize? It seems that his absence of ability to see anything else did not negate the ability of his spiritual sight to perceive Jesus, or at least a potential answer that went much deeper than anything else could. In the way a deaf person might more readily perceive the still small voice of God, so too might a blind person be more open to recognizing his presence. The privation of the worldly ensured space for the heavenly.

And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.
But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.”

The world couldn't see what he saw in Jesus, nor appreciate the possibility that Jesus might see something in him. They opposed him because they assumed Jesus had more important things to do, that his Kingdom was not about the poor, marginalized, or the disenfranchised. They opposed him because they underestimated both the blind man and Jesus himself. And the world is still like this. It tries to tell us both that we are not worthy of being helped and that, in any case, Jesus has no power to do so. If we're content to ask once and hope for the best it may not be enough. We need a firm resolution that calls out and keeps calling. The door is opened when we knock and keep knocking. The favor is given when we ask and keep asking. So it was for Bartimaeus.

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called the blind man, saying to him,
“Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”

We see that the saving action of Jesus also had a pedagogical effect on the crowd. They seemed surprised to discover that Jesus did in fact respond, and told Bartimaeus he was doing so with the impression that it was something that seemed to them far fetched or impossible. But by seeing it they had to recon with the fact that the priorities of Jesus were different than their own. It was perhaps not Bartimaeus that needed courage to face this fact so much as it was they themselves.

Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.”

Jesus knew what Bartimaeus desired, knew it before he asked, knew it before their paths even crossed. But he wanted to hear it from Bartimaeus himself. Jesus was indicating that what mattered to Bartimaeus also mattered to him. He didn't simply impose what he thought Bartimaeus would need, but gave him the thing he desired which they both agreed was good.

Immediately he received his sight
and followed him on the way.

Jesus left him free to follow his own path. But how could he, now that his life had been changed forever by Jesus? No normal path of life seemed sufficiently worthwhile to compare with just being near to one who was so good and beautiful as was Jesus. What would Bartimaeus do with his new gift of sight? Would he use it to go and see all of the sights he had missed thus far? Only secondarily. He chose rather to see more of the saving acts of Jesus. After all, what could be more beautiful?

Vertical Worship - I See The Lord

 

27 May 2026 - what about us?

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man
will be handed over

What indeed was the right thing to say in response to something like that? Peter tried to express concern by responding "This shall never happen to you", and was famously shot down with the rebuke, "Get behind me, Satan" (see Matthew 16:22-23). The right answer was by no means obvious. It was not to tell Jesus has was wrong. After all, charging headlong into Jerusalem, the seat of power for his opponents, was fraught enough to make it all together likely. It was not to tell Jesus that there might be another, better plan. That was what Peter had attempted. It was hard for the disciples to respond well because they had not yet purified themselves "by obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love" and thus could not yet love Jesus "intensely from a pure heart". Such a heart would have able to listen with compassion to what Jesus said, clarifying what it meant for Jesus and for itself, without the need to look away or seek distraction. Such a heart could have remained present with Jesus, as Jesus always invited his disciples to do. But before his crucifixion they failed at every turn, falling asleep in the garden, and fleeing from him at his arrest. 

"Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you."
He replied, "What do you wish me to do for you?"
They answered him,
"Grant that in your glory
we may sit one at your right and the other at your left."

In the case of James and John in our Gospel this morning we see another failure to stay present and take seriously what Jesus was telling them. It was as though their egos responded to fear and uncertainty by trying to make sure there would still be something left for them when the dust settled. Maybe it wasn't so unbelievable a response as it first appears. Peter himself had just asked about what rewards awaited those who gave up everything for Jesus. So James and John were simply shifting back to that topic, trying to ensure maximum results for themselves. Yet in doing so they ignored the fact that even in Jesus's answer to Peter he included persecutions in the content of the reward. And yet there was truly a reward awaiting the disciples. They would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (see Matthew 19:28). But the path to the throne was always the cross. In fact, in a certain sense, the cross was the throne. And to sit on his right and his left on that throne was not yet what James and John had in mind.

Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the chalice that I drink
or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"
They said to him, "We can."

What is so reassuring for us about the selfish bravado of the sons of thunder was how Jesus did not dismiss it entirely, but redirected it. The chalice they were to drink was not the one they imagined. But their eager energy could still be directed to seeking it out. Their desire for power and position could be put into service. That service would teach them to be servants. Only then could they be the leaders Jesus knew they could be.

When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John.

The power play of James and John had the cascading negative effect of arousing jealous and ambition in the others, a microcosm of the way the world works. None of them understood the necessary consequences of Kingdom power that Jesus had implied. So he spelled things out more plainly.

Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.

Instead of trying to climb to the top by stepping over others and using the misfortune of leaders for our own gain we are meant to begin our ascent by descending, by stooping down to help as many others as possible. The point of power is not to exist for its own  sake, but rather for the sake of love. We tend to cynically dismiss such an idea as hugely impractical. And for humans it is. But it works for Jesus. And he can show us how.

For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for many.

 

Brotherhood of Hope - To Love You And To Make You Loved