21 June 2026 - whom to fear

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Fear no one.
Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.

We need a functional fearlessness, with which we can avoid the temptation to conformity. With it we can be and say all which we ought for the sake of Jesus and his mission. This first point is not so much about our feelings as it is about not letting our feelings get in the way of living as faithful disciples. There will always be the temptation to hide our Christianity in the darkness, in the safe spaces where we know it is tolerated. But we are meant rather to proclaim it on the housetops, sometimes in words, but always through the way we live. More to it, our secret will get out eventually. It is better to reveal it ourselves than to have it revealed on the day of judgment. Do we affirm Jesus through the way we live? If so, there is nothing to fear. But if we deny him by refusing to be seen as his disciples we are implicitly asking him to deny us. If our lives indicate we don't want to be associated with Jesus and his message our eternity may tragically reflect that choice.

rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.

We need not be afraid of those who can hurt our feelings, take our possessions, or even kill us. We may be intimidated by them but we can't allow that fear to determine our choices. Rather, the fear that can be a healthy motivating force is that which pertains to our eternal destiny. We know that we are altogether too likely to betray Jesus at times, even as Peter did during his arrest and trial. We are rightly afraid of our own weakness and propensity to failure. We are right to fear the pains of hell and the loss of heaven, and even more right to fear offending our God who is good and deserving of all of our love. But even such healthy fear as this can lead to paralysis or even despair if it is not offset by our confidence in the love God has for us.

Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Fear of God must be tempered by constant remembrance of the great lengths to which he went for our salvation. We may sometimes have the mistaken impression that God is looking for an excuse to punish or condemn us. But it is precisely the opposite. He is always looking for even the slightest opening to unleash his salvation in our lives. If we have doubts about God's motivation we need only gaze upon the crucifix and things will quickly become crystal clear. Yes, it is possible to mess things up to the extent that we forfeit our salvation. But that is not what God wants, and he is thus constantly at work to ensure doesn't happen. He never ceases to supply his Spirit, helping us to be courageous and bold in choosing him as he first chose us. Even when we do stumble along the way it is he himself who invites us to stand up again, he himself who gives us the grace to do so. This life is not a battle we fight alone, any more than it was for Jeremiah, though for all of us it may seem that way at times. Life may well seem to be "Terror on every side!", but the words of Jesus in the Gospel today help us to learn to say, together with Jeremiah, "the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion: my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph". And we come at last to believe the words of the psalmist:

See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.

dc Talk - Fearless

 

20 June 2026 - flowers' power?

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

No one can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.

Excessive concern for money is a subset of a larger problem, indicative of the fact that we are trying to be the gods of our own lives. It demonstrates that we wish to insulate ourselves against all of the many things that could go wrong in the world. We become so afraid of the fact that our basic needs of our lives, including food, drink, and clothing, might not be met, that even remote possibilities of problems become intolerable. Or we turn to money because we don't find the world to be sufficient good on its own. Instead we decide that we must be the ones to ensure we have sufficient access to beauty and pleasure. Or we turn to money because we don't feel sufficiently confident that we are lovable in ourselves and use our wealth to give others reasons to want to be in our company. But when money is what we are chasing above all it quickly becomes evident to others. And it isn't a good look. When we care about money more than God and neighbor we become its servant instead of servants of the Lord. Rather than elevating ourselves by the power it promises we become something less than human, pursuing inanimate material resources as though they were our superiors.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
what you will eat or drink,
or about your body, what you will wear.

Jesus didn't say that we are not to provide for ourselves. He only said that worry doesn't actually add to our ability to do so. Worry is a lot of emotional movement that is nevertheless entirely unproductive, since worry cannot "add a single moment to your life-span". And yet we are reluctant to relinquish our right to worry. We have this semiconscious suspicion that if we don't subject ourselves to worry we won't expend enough effort to make it through life. But is it ever actually worry that helps? To be sure, preparedness often makes a difference. But preparation and worry are not the same or even similar. Preparation is best accomplished with a mind that is sound and sober. But when we worry we are by definition unsettled and in no position to make well thought out plans. Much less ought we worry after the fact, or about things over which we have no influence. In such matters it is best to let God be God and trust him. At a glance the state of the world might make us think that God's protection isn't enough and that there is after all a lot about which we should worry. But faith assures us that he is at work, and making all things work for together for the good of those who love him. This doesn't assure us that nothing bad will ever happen. Rather, it is a promise that even when bad things do happen they can never separate us from his love.

Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.
They do not work or spin.
But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor
was clothed like one of them.

Jesus didn't say that we are to stop working and expecting God to magically provide everything we need. What he meant to address was our doubts about his ability to provide for us. The laws that he made to govern the universe allow birds to consistently find the food they need and let the flowers of the field become beautiful without striving for beauty. We too have been intentionally willed and created by him. But unlike the flowers or the birds we are made with immortal souls, meant to spend eternity with him. The regularity with which birds find food and flowers become beautiful are meant to be reminders of the steadfast love that was the motivation of the creation of the universe. Birds are sometimes caught by hunters or predators. The flowers of the field are sometimes trampled underfoot or burned. But "whoever does the will of God abides forever" (see First John 2:17).

We can learn to stop worrying by not investing in the things, like mammon, that make us worry, and instead investing in the one sure thing: the Kingdom. The servitude we impose on ourselves by pursuing our own projects at any cost makes us old ahead of our time. But "they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength" (see Isaiah 40:31).

When we take Jesus at his word we gradually come to believe the words of the psalmist: "For ever I will maintain my love for my servant". We say with John, "we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us" (see First John 4:16).

Newsboys - Million Pieces (Kissin' Your Cares Goodbye)

 

19 June 2026 - where our treasure is

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.

Do the things we are seeking, those for which we invest energy and exert effort, have expiration dates? The more vicious of earthly pleasures tend to be the most short lived, requiring ever greater stimulation to in order to approach the highs they provided at first. But even the more virtuous forms of pleasure, such as are common in admirable friendships and families, can't last forever. We may delight in a game or a good conversation but we know that such things cannot last, that trying to draw them out too long in fact often ruins them. We may appreciate the beauty of a sunset, a painting, or a musical composition, but this too is transient. We may feel as though we are touching something central to reality when we attain to scientific knowledge or especially to wisdom. But even in these cases we are still typically focused on the sphere of temporal reality, on changing things, doomed to pass away. 

We tend to horde earthly treasure as though it can provide a bulwark against future trouble. We don't use the things of earth as if they are passing away but rather cling to them as though they can protect us forever. This leads us to a constant seeking of more, a constant dissatisfaction with what we have, as though if we just somehow get and keep enough we will finally be happy. We become like the man who built ever larger silos to store his surplus gain only. It no longer provides a utilitarian value we can put toward more important things. Rather, the mental and physical cost of maintaining it becomes a problem in its own right. 

But store up treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.

It is a blessing to store our treasure in heaven not only because in our future life it will be so unimaginably good to possess it, to possess God himself, but also because it is such a blessing to here and now let go of the white-knuckled grasp with which we hold things destined to pass away. When we use and hold temporary things knowing they are temporary in order to pursue things that are eternal we not only pursue the right path, but we also avoid much needless hardship and disappointment along the way.

For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

There is a real way that seeking heaven as our treasure makes the our earthly pilgrimage more heavenly. The more our hearts are set on God the more he will even now fill them with himself. By contrast, when we try to fill them with anything other than God we will always experience emptiness and gnawing hunger for more. God alone offers the bread that truly satisfies our hunger, the living water that alone can quench our thirst. Haven't we put up with the false promises of substitutes for long enough? Maybe we would think to answer that we have tried to seek treasure in heaven without finding it very satisfying, and we are simply making due with what we can in this mortal life of ours. But have we really? Or was that just a story we told ourselves? 

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart (see Jeremiah 29:13).

Damascus Worship Featuring Olivia Parker - You're The Well

 

18 June 2026 - how to pray

Today's Readings
(Audio)

In praying, do not babble like the pagans,
who think that they will be heard because of their many words.

It is sometimes tempting to imagine that our prayers ought to work like cause and effect, and that they should function like clockwork. Thus, if we don't receive what we ask immediately it might seem to us that we did something wrongly, either by using the wrong formula, or else by lack of sufficient quantity of words. In such ways we sometimes imagine prayer to as strategy for manipulating the deity to get what we want. But in fact it is more a strategy for aligning our hearts with the will of God so that we learn to want what he wants to give us. We may assume that once we sufficiently communicate our need or make our case God will eventually be convinced and acquiesce to our requests. After all, if he already knows what we need, why bother telling him? And yet, "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him", but we are still commanded to pray.

Our Father who art in heaven

The first and most important step of prayer is to remember with whom we are speaking. We are not the uninvited guest in the court of a potentially hostile king trying to plead our cause like Esther. Rather, we are in the house of our Father who loves us and who desires to give good things to his children (see Matthew 7:11). Thus we have good reason to persevere even when we may initially have nothing to show for our petitions. This is a relationship of trust in which Father really does know best. If we don't get exactly what we want when we want it it can only be because he has something better saved for later.

hallowed be thy name

We are sometimes tempted to think of God as flawed or limited in the way of all other creatures. This leads us to second guessing and mistrusting his will for us, both in what he actively sends, and what he permits. This suspicion, characteristic of humanity since the fall in Eden, prevents us from really believing that all things work together for the good of those who love God. Rather, it seems that they only occasionally work together for people that love him, and probably never in our case. This is exactly the sort of suspicion we are meant to undermine by affirming his unassailable holiness. Thus it is of chief importance to us that his name be hallowed in our hearts. When that is the case we will have the wherewithal to also desire that the rest of the world recognize his holiness as well.

thy Kingdom come

In the Gospels we discovered that the life and ministry of Jesus was not about establishing a military kingdom in the way that David had done. But neither was it a mostly imaginary invisible reality. It took concrete form in the gathering of the twelve apostles. They became the twelve pillars of a new transnational Israel into which all nations are now meant to be gathered. Their successors, the bishops continue the work entrusted to them by Jesus. The parables about the kingdom told by Jesus are thus often about the growth and progress of the Church in the world through the ages. All of them remind us that the Kingdom can never be rightly understood as a merely human project. What is needed for Kingdom growth is not so much techniques or strategies but more of the Spirit. Since we ourselves receive anointing is priest, prophet, and king in our baptism we are not meant to merely watch passively as others build the kingdom. It is our royal duty as well.

thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Even now in heaven God's will is always accomplished perfectly and entirely. But earth is obviously another story. Yet we recognize a day is coming when all things will be subject to him, when there will be no more crying or tears, but only the unhindered giving and receiving of love. Still, we sometimes feel a need to be in control, to reserve the right to do something other than God's perfect will for us, even if it proves destructive in the end, or to settle for less than all he has planned for us. When the human will of Jesus might have preferred to avoid the cross even he prayed, "not my will, but yours, be done" (see Luke 22:42). So we too must practice submitting our self-will to the will of God. The end results will be worth it.

Only after completing these God focused petitions do we go on to pray for ourselves. Once we've remembered who he is and affirmed that he has the first place in our lives it becomes safe to ask for what we want, since we are now more likely to ask for what we ought to want, rather than what our ego would ask, which is "to spend it on your passions" (see James 4:3).

Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Chris Tomlin - Good Good Father

 

17 June 2026 - seen and unseen

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Take care not to perform righteous deeds
in order that people may see them;
otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.

It isn't a bad thing to occasionally receive appreciation from others for the righteous deeds we do. But it is a problem when we become dependent on them for our motivation. If we only do things that can excite the admiration of others than much that needs to be done might remain not done. It will be as though those others are ultimately the ones in charge, giving us our marching orders, rather than God himself.

When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets
to win the praise of others.

We can't be limited in our almsgiving only to those things that other people notice. Even when there are people out there who care enough to reward good work with approval, they are not in a position to do so always and in every case. And that means that the human approval we gain by our good works will be a fickle friend. Even the good feelings we may produce in our own hearts by doing good and seeing ourselves as good people often prove unreliable. If we grow too addicted to human praise what happens when we can find any, either from others, or even ourselves? Will we nevertheless persist in doing what we ought? This is why Jesus does not encourage us to seek no reward whatever, but rather to count on God to reward us. We know that everything we do to bring us closer to him will eventually pay off. But we know better than to expect immediate one to one compensation from him. Rather, we grow in our capacity for him in ways that is often invisible even to ourselves, until he eventually comes and fills the space we have created with his own presence. It is he himself who desires to be our chief reward.

When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites,
who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners
so that others may see them.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.

When we do things because it helps us to project a certain self-image to others this too is an unreliable motivation. It may work partially, for a time. But it quickly becomes an addiction that is increasingly difficult to satisfy. We have to become more and more extreme in our behavior to continue to get others to notice, let alone to impress them. Before long our religiosity has shifted from impressive to intimidating or even annoying. Aside from how we are likely to come across there is the more important truth that God would not have us use prayer, which is supposed to be the means by which we grow in relationship with him, for any lesser agenda. We don't want to cause scandal by appearing indifferent to the things of God. But it would be better for us if we could keep the depths of our devotion hidden and appear unexceptional to others, more willing to reveal our flaws and our shared humanity than supposed strength. Sometimes, it is true, we do need to set an example for others. Like Paul we may even need to say, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ" (see First Corinthians 11:1) and thus reveal some aspects of our spiritual life to others. But when this is required of us we must also be careful to insist that "we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us" (see Second Corinthians 4:7).

When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
They neglect their appearance,
so that they may appear to others to be fasting.

Another thing that people are unreliable at providing is pity. We may well learn to seek this from them by the way we present ourselves to them, hoping that they can help to assuage the suffering we feel. We may even do more than mere honest self-presentation and play up our misery in hopes that others notice. Receiving sympathy from others is not a bad thing, any more than receiving earned praise from them is a bad thing. But the fact of the matter is that people are unreliable, and ultimately incapable of giving us what we need. We may find in their compassion a partial and occasional answer to our grief. But God's heart is not fickle like human hearts. That is why we are called by the psalmist to "pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us" (see Psalm 62:8). His mercy and love are constant, always available to us, whenever we seek them. But if we are too busy seeking the pity of our neighbors we will tend to be too preoccupied to turn to God.

But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to others to be fasting,
except to your Father who is hidden.
And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.

 

Songs In His Presence - Trust Him (Psalm 62)

 

16 June 2026 - a different kind of love

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Loving our enemies is a valuable test for us because in their case we know that we aren't being motivated by our own ego. With others we can easily convince ourselves that our love is altruistic while still being motivated mostly by what we ourselves receive. Yes, at times and in certain contexts it may seem to be primarily us giving and others receiving. But still, we may do such things for the way it makes others think about us, or the way it enables us to think about ourselves. Not so with enemies. With them our egos are chaffed as we go against our natural disposition to hostility and instead respond with kindness.

But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,

While we don't care to admit it we do tend to put people into categories. There are those we see as deserving of our love and those we see as having disqualified themselves. We might easily buy a coffee and a sandwich for someone with no place to live and no job. But we could hardly be bothered to even spare a polite word to someone with an opposite political point of view to our own. To give food to the hungry is obviously a good thing. But it is also something that more easily conduces to feeling good. To greet others who are not are political brothers with nothing but sincerity and kindness means by definition that we don't feeling smug and superior as a consequence. But it does make us more like Jesus who came to call everyone, not just those who were already onboard with his program, since, indeed, no one was. 

When we manage to love our enemies we become the peacemakers who will be called the sons of God. And therefore Jesus says, "you may be children of your heavenly Father". His love does not discrimination on the basis of who can reciprocate, since, after all, none of us can. It does not exclude even enemies. For if it did, we ourselves would never have been able to become his friends. He died for us while we were still hostile to him. But now he really does call us his friends (see John 15:15). And this is meant to be the model for our own love. It is not mere subjective abstraction. It is not just imaging that we have no enemies, or pretending a love which is merely in our minds. It is a love for enemies that is so real that it actually has a chance of turning them into our friends.

for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

Let's stop making judgments about who is deserving and who is not. We don't have to enable or empower those given over to evil. But we do have to love them, and not merely in words. If they are in fact as given over to evil as we imagine, it may be because they have not known such love as Jesus enjoins on us. They may have experienced life where they felt they had to earn every affirmation they received. They may not know that they have value that is independent of anything they can do, simply because God made them and he loves them. But, in a small way, we can help to reveal this to them.

So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The call to be perfect means many things. But today, for our purposes we can think about it as having no blind spots in our compassion. Thus, if we do have enemies, we have opportunities, opportunities to love even without obvious reward, to become peacemakers, and to reveal God's love to the world.

The Maranatha Singers - He Is Our Peace

 

15 June 2026 - understanding the assignment

Today's Readings
(Audio)

You have heard that it was said,
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Laws that were meant to prevent an escalation of violence in the public sphere were not to be used to justify revenge in private life. It was not the case that because it was the maximum permitted that one should take it as the minimum to be accepted. Maximums exist because of the necessity of maintaining society, which is only possible with consequences that deter bad actors. But they do not exist for us to indulge our own personal animosity toward others. If we are meant to be a people of peace and forgiveness we must understand the necessity of law and order but to try and to personally live a higher standard.

But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.
When someone strikes you on your right cheek,
turn the other one to him as well.

In the civil sphere the government must at least provide the possibility of resistance against those who are evil. But insofar as we can, without dismantling that protection, we are called to not personally impose or call for that resistance. We are instead called to a standard of nonviolence like that which was practiced by Jesus himself. This may include foregoing seeking legitimate legal protection or satisfaction. But we do not do this because we lack self-esteem or to make easy targets for evil people. We do so because our union with Christ makes it possible for us to absorb evil and transform it. We ourselves benefit by not encouraging a spirit of vengeance within our own hearts. And the other person benefits because they experience what it is like to be loved even when it would seem they have not earned it. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And while our enemies are still our enemies we must do our best to love them. After all, this is the only way the cycle of violence and retribution can ever truly be broken.

If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic,
hand him your cloak as well.

When we are required to respond out of obligation we tend to content ourselves with the bare minimum. There is no sense of compassion for the other, since they seem to be imposing their own will without regard for us. But we must not lose sight of the fact that even they are individuals created in the image and likeness of God. They are among the ones whose good we should desire for God's sake. And thus, our response should not be about what we can get away with ourselves so much as what the call of love would have us do for the other.

Should anyone press you into service for one mile,
go with him for two miles.

It is possible that we can so change the context of how we are seen by oppressors that they no longer feel able to sustain their hostility. Slogans, protests, shouting, and violence may cause an oppressor to think twice and wonder if hostility is worth the trouble. But they are unlikely make a convert out of him. They are unlikely to help him see the shared humanity of the oppressed. But if we love him we can transcend these limits. We can help reveal the artificiality of the barriers that divide us from each other, and point to the fact that we are meant all meant to be united in the one family of God.

When we first encounter the beatitudes they typically seem impossible, and then unreasonable. But eventually, when we understand the assignment, they become our privilege. We are invited to live like Jesus, to love like him, and to watch that love transform the world.

Give to the one who asks of you,
and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.

Hillsong Worship - To Be Like You

 

14 June 2026 - the chosen

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant,
you shall be my special possession,
dearer to me than all other people,
though all the earth is mine.

God chose the people of Israel in spite of the fact that they were far from the most impressive nation. It wasn't based on their merits that God desired them to be his special possession. It was on the basis of his choice, their election, that they were meant to be dearer to him than all other nations. There was a thread throughout the Old Testament of people who wanted to make a name for themselves, the instance of the Tower of Babel being among the most memorable. But God was not interested in helping with such projects. He rather chose the weak to shame the strong, even in the Old Testament before we really establish that as his primary MO. The instance of Gideon's army was just one such example. God desired to make clear that it was the strength of his arm and not the might of the soldiers that led to their salvation.

But God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

We were chosen not only in spite of the fact that we weren't particularly impressive in a worldly sense, but even in spite of the fact that we weren't particularly good. It wasn't as though God decided to forego the strong people and select the nice ones. It was rather his love that caused him to save us before we took even so much as a thought for him. When we were wrapped up in self-love he was imagining how he could bring each of us to realize his love for us. He did so with such a shocking display of gratuitous compassion that even the most self-centered of us would have no choice but to take notice. 

Indeed, if, while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son,
how much more, once reconciled,
will we be saved by his life.

God does not desire to leave us as he finds us, and it is for this reason that John Paul the Great said, "We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son Jesus". The love of God genuinely transforms us. It is more than snow covering dung or a garment concealing the filth underneath. We actually become the righteousness of God (see Second Corinthians 5:21) and grow in our ability to participate in the life of grace, which is  God's own divine life. This is ultimately what is meant by salvation. It is through this gift that we finally become the "kingdom of priests" and "holy nation" that we were always meant to be.

At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them 
because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.

What Jesus saw in the crowd was reflective of the condition he saw throughout the world. His heart for others was so big, but his reach was limited to the people who could encounter his physical presence on earth. Thus he wanted to expand his reach but using his disciples as his hands and feet. And he not only wanted to do so, but wanted us to want it. We were not meant to take for granted that there would be laborers, but to join Jesus in pleading with his Father that they be sent. We were to have the same heart of compassion for the world, often in spite of itself, that Jesus demonstrated. 

Jesus also want those who interceded for this purpose to be open to the fact that they might be among those God called, indeed, in one sense or another they would be. But it wasn't necessarily because there was a fit between natural predispositions and the work at hand. It wasn't as everyone thought about himself and saw how natural of a fit he would be to undertake the mission and decided to do so on that basis. Rather, a person would first see the need, then desire that it to be filled, and then be delighted when the call of Jesus made it possible for him to participate in some way. The compassion and the call came first. Then Jesus himself equipped and qualified the ones he called for their specific part of his mission. They were never meant to undertake it on their own abilities alone, any more than Peter could walk on water without the call of Jesus telling him to come.

The names of the twelve apostles are these:
first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew;
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;
James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus;
Simon from Cana, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

If Jesus was able to start a Church that has endured through the ages into our own time using such a ragtag band as the pillars on which it was founded then we have no excuses for excusing ourselves from his call in our own lives, however great or small, public or hidden, that call may be. No matter how challenging it may seem, or how outnumbered we feel, the one thing necessary for success is to be called be Jesus. And we have been thus called.

There are many sheep that are still lost, still troubled and abandoned, still desperately in need of salvation. God wants to use us to help summon those who will be specially ordained or consecrated to the task. But he wants to use us directly as well. There is no limits to the compassion of his heart. And he desires that we place no limits on how that compassion can work in us and flow through us to the world.

Chris Tomlin - Jesus Messiah

 

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