Today is somewhere in between.

I find myself aggravated with the quality of the things we all rely on: food, water, soil, and the people and systems who work tirelessly and generally thanklessly until something goes wrong.

Creation care can sometimes feel a bit distant from daily life: forests, oceans, endangered species, or weather; certainly, it is all of these things, but it is also much closer.

Soil, water, food, farmers, laborers, knowledge, children, the elderly, those who are pregnant, those who are ill, and the immunocompromised. To care for creation is to recognize that which has been created is not simply ours to exploit; it is a gift from God to be received with gratitude, tended with wisdom, and shared with love.

And so, let us pray for the world and the wisdom to conserve it for the flourishing of creation.

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Almighty God, creator of all that is seen and unseen, whose wisdom orders the heavens and who formed the earth and called it good: we give thanks for soil and seed, rain and sunlight, plants and animals and all that creep upon the earth, fly in the air, and swim in the oceans, we give thanks for the labor of human hands, and for the abundance by which your creatures are fed.

Grant wisdom to all who tend the earth, that the land may be cultivated with care and its gifts received with gratitude; give knowledge and perseverance to scientists, physicians, researchers, inspectors, farmers, laborers, and all whose work protects the health and nourishment of our communities.

Grant discernment to those entrusted with responsibility, that each decision affecting the common good may be guided by truth, prudence, compassion, and concern for those who are most vulnerable: protect the children, the aged, the pregnant, those whose bodies are weakened by illness, and all who depend upon the watch and care of others.

Where there has been negligence, inspire responsibility; where there has been waste, teach stewardship; where there is greed, cultivate generosity; where there has been fear, grant peace; and where creation has been wounded, make us instruments of healing.

Teach us to remember that our daily bread comes to us through a vast communion of life: earth and water, seed and creature, human labor and human knowledge, all held within your sustaining and life-giving love.

Make us faithful stewards of what we have received from you, careful of what we consume and ever-grateful for what nourishes us, and forever mindful of our neighbors.

When the problems before us seem to be too large for our hands, keep us from indifference and grant us the grace to do the good work that is ours to do, inspired by your Holy Spirit, to speak with charity, act in wisdom, and to trust that even small acts of care may bear good fruit.

All this we ask through Jesus Christ, in whom all things are being made new, and through whom creation is being reconciled and renewed.

Amen.

Faithfulness in Small Places

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Simon Peter answers, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16, NRSV).

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Jesus responds to Peter’s confession by speaking about the Church: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18, NRSV).

That last phrase deserves a second look, mostly because we tend to hear it with 21st-century ears, not first-century ones. These days, when someone mentions “the gates of Hades,” we might imagine a full-on demonic assault, or at least a spiritual WWE match featuring temptation, persecution, and a lot of dramatic music.

But Hades here refers to the realm of the dead. And gates? Not exactly the weapon of choice for an attack. They’re more about keeping things in than launching an offensive. So Jesus is actually saying something a bit more profound than, “Don’t worry, you’ll survive the bad guys.” The promise is that not even death gets the last word over the Church.

Fast forward almost two thousand years, and, against all odds—and several predictions to the contrary—the Church is still here.

This is not to say that Christianity’s history has been a smooth ride. If anything, it’s been more like a rollercoaster designed by someone with a flair for drama. The Church has weathered persecution, plagues, political meddling, and enough theological arguments to fill several reality TV seasons. Christians have split over doctrine, leadership, language, culture, worship, authority, and, occasionally, things that now seem about as consequential as the color of the carpet. Some leaders have been less than inspiring. Sometimes Christians have managed to use Christ’s name for things that would make Christ wince. Congregations have disappeared, great Christian centers have faded, and yet somehow the faith keeps popping up in places no one expected.

Sometimes the Church has been powerful enough to influence rulers. Other times, Christians have worshiped quietly, even when it was dangerous. There have been grand cathedrals filled with people and small groups meeting in homes. Monasteries have kept Scripture and learning alive during hard times. Missionaries have brought the Gospel to new places. Reformers have called the Church back to faithfulness. Ordinary Christians have prayed, received the sacraments, fed their neighbors, buried the dead, raised children, cared for the sick, and quietly passed the faith from one generation to the next.

Forms have changed. Institutions have changed. Languages have changed. Empires that once seemed tied to the Church have disappeared completely, presumably into the same void as MySpace and Blockbuster.

And yet, the Church remains.

Of course, this doesn’t mean every parish is immortal. Not every denomination, diocese, cathedral, seminary, or church structure comes with a lifetime warranty. Jesus never promised that our preferred flavor of Christianity would be preserved in amber for all eternity. Churches have closed before, and, spoiler alert, ours could too.

The promise is a lot bigger than just keeping the institution running like a well-oiled—or even slightly rusty—machine.

Christ will have a Church.

Somewhere, the Gospel will be shared. Somewhere, water will be poured in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Somewhere, Christians will gather around bread and wine and follow the command to “do this in remembrance of me.” Somewhere, the Scriptures will be read. Prayers will rise from hospital rooms, choir stalls, kitchen tables, prison cells, country chapels, or even from churches that do not yet exist.

And somewhere, the Church will continue to answer the question Jesus asked at Caesarea Philippi: “But who do you say that I am?”

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

That confession has crossed centuries.

This confession has been spoken in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, English, and many other languages. It survived the Roman Empire, which once persecuted believers. It survived the split between East and West, the Reformation, and the divisions that came after. It has lasted through wars, revolutions, political changes, cultural shifts, and many predictions that Christianity would end.

And still the Church confesses Christ.

For Anglicans, this is part of what we say in the Nicene Creed: we believe in “one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” The Church is bigger than the Episcopal Church, bigger than Anglicanism, and bigger than any single branch like Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, or Eastern Orthodoxy. The Church spans places and centuries, including generations of Christians who lived, worshiped, died, and passed on the faith.

We’ve inherited something we didn’t invent, assemble, or even beta-test.

The Gospel was shared before we arrived. The Scriptures were kept safe before us. The prayers we use were prayed by others before us. The sacraments we receive were celebrated by earlier Christians. Even the words we use to confess Christ have been passed down by generations who, like us, answered the same question.

Our job isn’t to guarantee the Church’s survival. That’s above our pay grade. Christ already took care of the promise part.

Our responsibility is faithfulness.

We share the Gospel in our time. We baptize, celebrate the Eucharist, and teach the faith. We love our neighbors. We repent when the Church does not reflect Christ. We pass on what we have received, trusting that others will do the same after us.

There will be hard times ahead. There always are. The Church in a hundred years might look as familiar to us as dial-up internet does to Gen Z. Some institutions we know will end, new ones will pop up, and Christianity will probably keep showing up in places no one put on the map, while shrinking in places that once seemed like a sure thing.

None of this should scare us.

Jesus did not say that the Church would never change. Jesus did not say that the Church would never suffer. Jesus certainly did not say that the Church would never make mistakes.

Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

They have not.

Through all the triumphs and failures, all the holiness and corruption, all the unity and division, the Church universal has continued to turn toward Jesus Christ and make Peter’s confession:

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

The generations before us made that confession.

We make it now.

And, until Christ comes again, generations yet unborn will make it after us.

The gates have not prevailed.

Faithfulness in Small Places

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Today, because I find this chapter too amusing not to share right away, you get to read it.

Below you will get to read a full chapter from Book Two, the continuing story from Book One. Jonah will soon learn that faithfulness is not always dramatic, but just getting up daily, doing your prayers, doing the work presented to you, and wondering what on earth God is doing, and still continuing anyway.

If you have not read Faithfulness in Small Places, this will be an excellent introduction to Providence, Oklahoma.

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Gerald

Provberbs 27:27

There will be enough goats’ milk for your food, for the food of your household and nourishment for your servant-girls.

There was an enormously fat goat standing in Dot’s flower bed.

I noticed him through the cabin window while pouring my second cup of coffee Monday morning.

At first, I thought he was some sort of lawn ornament. Providence had several houses decorated with metal roosters, wooden bears, wagon wheels, and other objects intended to communicate rural authenticity despite being purchased at chain stores.

Then the lawn ornament moved.

A bright orange zinnia disappeared into its mouth.

“No.”

The goat continued chewing.

I set down my coffee and moved closer to the window.

He was enormous.

Not tall, exactly. Wide.

He had the general proportions of an ottoman that had grown legs, with a round belly hanging between them and a pair of short horns curving backward from his head. His coat was mostly white with patches of black and brown, and his expression suggested an animal profoundly satisfied with the direction his morning had taken.

Another flower disappeared.

“No. Absolutely not.”

Dot had planted those.

I did not know exactly what they were beyond flowers, but I knew she had spent an entire Saturday morning putting them into the beds around Saint Jude’s and had threatened Charles with bodily harm when he suggested they might not survive the heat.

The goat reached for another.

I ran outside.

I had already dressed for the day, which meant black clerical shirt, black slacks, collar, and shoes entirely unsuited for livestock management.

The goat looked up as I approached.

“Hello.”

He chewed.

“You cannot be here.”

Another chew.

“This is church property.”

His horizontal pupils regarded me without concern. I pointed toward the road.

“You need to go home.”

The goat lowered his head and ate a marigold. Apparently my authority did not extend to ungulates. I stepped into the flower bed.

“Come on.”

I reached carefully toward his neck, hoping to find a collar. There was none. The goat allowed me to touch him.

“That’s good. See? We’re friends.”

I put both hands against his shoulders and attempted to turn him away from the flowers. Nothing happened. I pushed harder. The goat continued chewing. I planted one foot behind me and shoved with what I considered respectable force.

He shifted perhaps half an inch.

“Good Lord.”

The goat looked back at me.

“You are built like a refrigerator.”

He resumed eating.

I tried pulling instead, gripping a handful of loose skin near his shoulders as gently as possible and coaxing him toward the gravel lot.

“Come on, buddy.”

He took one step.

“Yes.”

Another.

“That’s it.”

Then he saw something beside the porch and changed direction with astonishing speed. I did not. My shoes skidded in the grass as the goat surged forward, dragging me several feet before I released him.

“Stop!”

He had found the small bag of birdseed I kept near the porch. Of course he had. By the time I reached him, his head was buried in it.

“No.”

I grabbed the bag. He grabbed the bag. We pulled.

“This is not yours.”

The goat disagreed.

“Let go.”

He pulled harder.

“Sir.”

Nothing. I was now addressing the goat formally.

“Sir, I need you to release the birdseed.”

The bag split. Sunflower seeds scattered across the porch. The goat immediately began vacuuming them up. I stood over him holding half an empty bag.

“That seems fair.”

I went back inside for supplies. The refrigerator offered little help. Eggs seemed impractical. Cheese felt morally complicated. The venison stew was Ruth’s and therefore sacred.

I settled on an apple.

The goat looked up the instant I stepped outside.

“Ah. So now we communicate.”

I held the apple out. He approached.

“Good.”

I backed toward the road. The goat followed.

“Excellent.”

This was working. I took another step. He followed. I began feeling dangerously competent. Perhaps animal husbandry was simply pastoral care with clearer boundaries.

We made it almost to the gravel lot. Then the goat lunged. Not for the apple. For my shirt. His teeth caught the loose fabric near my hip.

I froze.

“No.”

He pulled. The shirt tightened across my back.

“No.”

He pulled again.

“Absolutely not.”

I tried to pry his mouth open without losing a finger. The goat backed away, dragging me with him.

“This shirt was expensive.”

He did not care. I twisted sideways. The fabric stretched. Something popped. A button landed in the grass.

I stared at it.

The goat chewed.

“Gerald.”

I do not know why I called him Gerald. The name simply arrived. Perhaps he looked like a Gerald. Perhaps the Holy Spirit provided it. Either way, Gerald pulled again.

“LET GO.”

A patrol car turned into the church lot. Gerald released me. I stumbled backward. The car stopped. Bo McKnight sat behind the wheel.

He did not immediately get out. He simply looked through the windshield at me standing in the grass with half my shirt untucked, one button missing, an apple in my hand, and an enormous goat beside me.

I raised both arms.

Bo lowered his window.

“Morning, Father.”

“Help me.”

He looked at Gerald.

Then at me.

“You got yourself a goat.”

“I am aware.”

Bo rested his elbow on the window.

“You steal him?”

“Yes, Bo. I have begun a criminal livestock operation from the church property.”

“Times are hard.”

“Get out of the car.”

He did.

Gerald saw him. The goat stiffened. Every muscle in his body locked at once. His legs went rigid.

Then he fell sideways.

Straight over.

No warning.

No attempt to catch himself.

Just—

thump.

I dropped the apple.

“Oh my God.”

Bo stopped. Gerald lay motionless in the grass. I ran toward him.

“You killed him!”

“I didn’t touch him.”

“He saw you and died!”

Bo began laughing.

“This is not funny!”

Gerald’s legs twitched. I crouched beside him.

“Is he having a seizure?”

Bo laughed harder.

“Bo!”

“He’s fine.”

“He is on the ground.”

“He’s a fainting goat.”

I stared at him.

“A what?”

“A fainting goat.”

“That is a thing?”

“Apparently.”

“How do you know?”

Bo pointed at Gerald.

“Because Gerald does this.”

I slowly looked down at the goat.

“You know him?”

“Everybody knows Gerald.”

I looked back at Bo.

“You knew his name?”

“Yeah.”

“I named him that five minutes ago.”

“No, his name’s Gerald.”

Gerald’s head lifted.

I stood. The goat rolled awkwardly upright, shook himself, and looked around as though nothing unusual had occurred.

Then he walked straight toward me and grabbed my shirt again.

I closed my eyes.

“Of course.”

Bo nearly folded himself over laughing.

“Please be useful.”

“I am being useful.”

“You are witnessing my suffering.”

“Community policing.”

Gerald pulled. Another thread snapped. I pried the shirt from his mouth.

“What is wrong with this animal?”

“Mostly Gerald.”

“That is not a diagnosis.”

Bo walked closer. Gerald saw him. His legs stiffened.

“Don’t.”

Thump. Gerald fell over again. I threw my hands into the air.

“You cannot keep doing that!”

Bo wiped tears from his eyes.

“Pretty sure he can.”

“Why doesn’t he faint around me?”

Bo considered the question. Then smiled.

“Guess you don’t scare him.”

I looked down at my ruined shirt.

“That feeling does not appear mutual.”

A pickup turned into the lot. Charles. He parked beside Bo’s patrol car and climbed out slowly.

He looked at me. Then at Gerald. Then back at me.

“Oh.”

“You too?”

Charles walked closer. Gerald opened one eye. His legs stiffened.

Thump.

I stared. Charles nodded. “Yep.”

“Everyone knows this goat.”

“Pretty much.”

“How?”

Charles looked genuinely confused by the question.

“Because he’s Gerald.”

“That explains nothing.”

Gerald recovered again.

Charles reached into the bed of his pickup and pulled out a small coffee can filled with feed pellets.

The goat immediately followed him. No argument. No dragging. No clerical clothing destroyed. He simply followed.

I stared at Charles.

“How did you do that?”

“Feed.”

“I tried an apple.”

“Gerald don’t care about apples.”

“He ate half the landscaping.”

“That’s different.”

“What does that mean?”

Charles shrugged. I looked at Bo. “Who owns him?”

Bo’s amusement faded slightly.

“That’s the problem.”

“No one.”

“No one admits to it.”

Charles poured a few pellets onto the ground. Gerald attacked them.

“He’s been around town for months,” Charles said. “Maybe longer.”

“Months?”

“Shows up at different places.”

Bo nodded toward Main Street. “Last month he was behind the bank.”

Susan had not mentioned this.

“Before that,” Charles continued, “he spent three days behind First Baptist.”

“Did they claim him?”

“No.”

“Of course not.”

“He got into the feed store once.”

I looked at Charles.

“How?”

“Door was open.”

“That seems like your fault.”

“Yep.”

I pointed toward Gerald.

“So what happens to him?”

Bo sighed.

“City picks him up.”

“Providence has animal control?”

Bo gave me a look.

“No.”

“Of course not.”

“Usually public works.”

I waited.

“They put him in a trailer and take him outside city limits.”

I stared at him.

“And then?”

“He comes back.”

“How?”

Charles shrugged. “Goat.”

This appeared to be the universal explanation for Gerald.

“How many times has the city done this?”

Bo thought. “Four?”

Charles shook his head. “Five.”

“Five times?”

“Maybe six.”

“You repeatedly dump a goat outside city limits and he repeatedly returns?”

“Pretty much.”

“That sounds less like animal control and more like exile.”

Bo smiled. “We tried taking him farther last time.”

“And?”

“Came back two days later.”

“Where did he show up?”

“Dollar General.”

I could already hear Daniel’s opinion. A city utility truck turned into the parking lot. The driver leaned out his window.

“Gerald?”

Bo pointed.

The driver sighed.

“Dammit.”

I had many questions about why this was apparently an established municipal procedure. The truck pulled alongside us. A small livestock trailer was attached behind it.

Two city workers climbed out. Neither appeared surprised. One looked at my shirt.

“Get you, Father?”

“Yes.”

He nodded knowingly.

“He’ll do that.”

“How is this normal?”

No one answered.

Charles shook the feed can. Gerald followed him toward the trailer. Then Dot arrived.

Her sedan turned into the parking lot at precisely the wrong moment. She parked. She got out. She saw the city truck, Bo, Charles, and Gerald.

Then she saw the flower bed.

She stopped.

There are silences that invite contemplation. There are silences that allow grief to breathe. There are silences in which the Holy Spirit may speak.

This was none of those.

“Father.”

I straightened.

“Good morning, Dot.”

“What happened to my flowers?”

I looked at Gerald. Gerald looked at Dot. His legs stiffened.

Thump.

Dot barely reacted.

“Oh. Gerald.”

I stared at her. “You know him too?”

“Everybody knows Gerald.”

“Apparently.”

She walked toward the flower bed and inspected the damage.

“Three zinnias.”

“I tried.”

“Two marigolds.”

“He is remarkably fast.”

She crouched.

“And my salvia.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“You don’t need to. It’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

Dot stood and finally examined me. Her eyes moved to the torn side of my shirt.

“What happened to you?”

“Gerald.”

She nodded.

“He does that.”

“Why does everyone say that like it’s weather?”

Behind us, Gerald stood again. One of the city workers attempted to guide him toward the trailer. Gerald saw him.

Thump.

The worker waited. Gerald got back up. They continued. No one commented. It was apparently built into the process.

Dot looked at the goat, then at the flower bed.

“They taking him out past the old quarry again?”

Bo nodded.

“Probably.”

“He’ll be back.”

The city worker heard her.

“Don’t say that.”

“He always comes back.”

“We took him eight miles last time.”

“Should’ve taken him nine.”

The worker glared. Dot smiled. Eventually, Gerald entered the trailer voluntarily after Charles poured feed inside. The gate closed. The city workers secured it. I stood beside Bo as the truck prepared to leave.

“So no one knows where he actually belongs?”

Bo shook his head. “Somebody does.”

“But they won’t say.”

“Would you?”

I looked at Gerald through the trailer slats. He was eating something. Possibly part of the trailer.

“No.”

“Exactly.”

The truck pulled away. Gerald disappeared toward the road. For a moment, the parking lot was quiet. Dot returned to her flowers. Charles put the feed can back in his truck.

Bo looked at my shirt. “You got another one?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“That is the full extent of your pastoral care?”

“I’m a police officer.”

“You were also useless.”

“I called the city.”

“You laughed for ten minutes first.”

“Didn’t affect response time.”

He climbed back into his patrol car. “See you Thursday, Father.”

“Assuming Gerald doesn’t return.”

Bo grinned. “He probably will.”

I looked toward Charles.

“Is that likely?”

“Yep.”

“When?”

Charles shrugged. “Gerald.”

He drove away.

Dot remained crouched beside the flower bed, rearranging what Gerald had spared. I walked over.

“Can I help?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“You’ve helped enough.”

“That seems unfair.”

She looked at my shirt.

“Go change.”

I obeyed. By noon, the churchyard had returned to normal. The flower bed looked thinner. The birdseed was gone.

My shirt lay in the trash with two missing buttons, several stretched seams, and a line of goat saliva that I did not believe laundering could sanctify.

I checked the job listings. Nothing. I ate lunch. I attempted to read. At two-thirty, Daniel texted me.

Was that Gerald at your church this morning?

I stared at the message.

How do you know?

His reply came immediately.

Everyone knows Gerald.

I set the phone face down.

At four, Susan called to ask whether Dot’s flowers had survived. At four-fifteen, Rosie sent word through someone that Gerald had once entered the patio at Los Abuelos and eaten half a basket of tortilla chips.

At five, Mavis walked past Saint Jude’s and informed me that Gerald had “a very independent aura.”

I did not ask.

By evening, I sat on the porch with my journal and recorded the day. There was no theological lesson. I refused to manufacture one. Gerald was not a metaphor for perseverance.

He was not an illustration of the lost sheep, mostly because he was a goat and appeared to know exactly where he was.

He was simply a very fat, occasionally unconscious public nuisance who had eaten Dot’s flowers and ruined one of my clerical shirts. Seminary had prepared me for Scripture, liturgy, ethics, pastoral care, canon law, and the administration of the sacraments.

Providence continued to identify gaps in the curriculum. I closed the journal. Somewhere beyond the churchyard, a dog began barking. Then another. I looked toward the road.

Nothing.

I relaxed. Five minutes later, my phone buzzed. A message from Bo.

Gerald spotted behind gas station.

I stared at it. The city had removed him less than nine hours ago.

I typed:

You have got to be kidding me.

Three dots appeared.

Gerald.

I put the phone down. Thursday’s Celebration was three days away. My job search remained unresolved. My congregation had banned me from the parish hall.

And somewhere in Providence, an enormously fat fainting goat was once again at large.

I had no idea who owned him.

I was beginning to suspect Providence did.

Faithfulness in Small Places

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This prayer has a particular formula, along with several different forms already included in the Book of Common Prayer. The formula is as follows:

Prayer is offered with intercession for

The Universal Church, its members, and its mission
The Nation and all in authority
The welfare of the world
The concerns of the local community
Those who suffer and those in any trouble
The departed (with commemoration of a saint when appropriate)

And today, for our Tuesday Prayer, we will be using this formula.

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With all our being, with all our might, and with all our heart, let us pray to the Lord, saying, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon us.

Almighty God, we pray for the Body of Christ, your Church: for its members and all who bear the name of Christian. May they be emboldened by your Holy Spirit to live faithfully to the truth of the Gospel, to proclaim the Good News boldly, and to serve without fear or prejudice their neighbors—every human being.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon us.

Holy Lord, we pray for the nations of the world that all leaders of nations, provinces, states, and communities may work for the welfare of their people and be inspired by your Holy Spirit and the example of your well-beloved Son to act for the good of all people, remembering all earthly authority is accountable to the rule of justice, mercy, and peace revealed in Jesus Christ.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon us.

Blessed Creator, enlighten us through the fire of your Holy Spirit that we may be faithful stewards of Your creation, our home: may we care for all of your creation, from the resources of our planet, to every living thing that is upon it, to the vastness of space, that we may strive for an end to war, poverty, famine, disease, disaster, and displacement, and for peace between peoples; may we care for it just as we should for our neighbors.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon us.

Holy Comforter, we lift up the concerns of each of our communities: may your Spirit guide us to serve those in need and invigorate us to act for the betterment of our neighborhoods, communities, and cities.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon us.

Almighty Healer, comforter of all who sorrow and suffer in body, mind, or spirit: be with those now whom we lift up in this prayer, and those whom we may name in this prayer: (Please, anyone who is on your heart, name them now, aloud or silently).

Send your Spirit of healing and comfort and stay with those who are suffering, those who care for them, and those who worry for them.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon us.

Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, hear our prayer for those who have passed from this earthly existence: grant to the departed rest, light, and the joy of your heavenly Kingdom. (Anyone who is on your heart, name them now, aloud or silently).

Remember those who grieve and send your Spirit of comfort upon them, and come beside them to shoulder some of the weight.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon us.

Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, forever Three in One and One in Three, remember us as we lift this prayer: grant those things which we cannot, or dare not, ask, according to your will; and may that will be done on earth as in heaven. Amen.

Faithfulness in Small Places

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Moses standing before Pharaoh, David against Goliath, or Peter stepping out of the boat onto the water.

Then there are moments when faith looks considerably less impressive; sometimes like a desperate mother who simply refuses to go away.

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In today’s Gospel, Jesus has withdrawn to the district of Tyre and Sidon when a Canaanite woman begins crying out:

“Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”

At first, Jesus says nothing at all and thhis detail has always bothered me. This woman comes asking for mercy, frightened for her daughter, and believes Jesus can help her.

And there is silence.

Then the disciples become irritated.

“Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”

And she still doesn’t leave.

Jesus speaks of being sent to the lost sheep of Israel.

She still does not leave.

Instead, she comes closer, kneels, and offers one of the simplest prayers in all of Scripture:

“Lord, help me.”

I think there are times when that may be the only prayer we have left.

Not a beautifully composed collect. Not Morning Prayer said with perfect attention. Not some profound theological statement.

Just:

Lord, help me.

Then comes perhaps the most difficult moment of the passage.

Jesus says,

“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

There is no particularly useful reason for us to pretend that this sounds less harsh than it does, but the woman does something extraordinary.

She stays.

And she answers:

“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

She takes the image placed before her and turns it into a confession of faith. She doesn’t claim that she deserves anything or attempt to demonstrate that she is more righteous than anyone else; she simply believes the mercy of Christ is so abundant that even the crumbs are enough.

And Jesus answers:

“Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”

Great is your faith.

That is an extraordinary thing for Jesus to say. Because her faith doesn’t look like certainty or confidence. It doesn’t even look like everything going according to plan.

Her faith looks like returning, perseverance.

She cries out, and when there is silence, she remains. The disciples want her gone, and she remains. The answer does not come as she expects, and she remains.

She kneels before Christ and says again:

Lord, help me.

Perhaps we have misunderstood what great faith is supposed to look like.

We sometimes imagine the person of great faith as someone who never doubts, never struggles, never grows tired, and never wonders whether the prayer has been heard, but this is rarely the faith Scripture gives us.

Biblical faith is very often the faith that keeps returning to the Lord. It is Israel wandering through the wilderness and discovering manna again the next morning. It is the psalmist crying out from despair and nevertheless continuing to pray. It is Peter sinking beneath the water and shouting, “Lord, save me!”

And here it is a mother who has every reason to turn around and walk home but refuses to stop trusting that mercy can still be found in Jesus Christ.

That kind of faithfulness may be much closer to our own lives.

There will be seasons when prayer feels fruitful, when worship fills us with joy, and when the presence of Christ seems almost tangible.

And there will also be mornings when we barely manage to pray.

There will be seasons of grief, exhaustion, illness, disappointment, and fear. There will be times when we pray and seem to receive silence in return. Great faith does not necessarily mean pretending that those seasons are easy. Sometimes great faith means coming back tomorrow. Sometimes faithfulness is opening the Prayer Book again. Sometimes it is walking through the church doors when we are not entirely sure why we bothered coming. Sometimes it is making the sign of the cross and remembering our baptism. Sometimes it is receiving the bread and wine and trusting that Christ is present even when we cannot feel anything particularly holy.

And sometimes it is simply whispering:

Lord, help me.

The Canaanite woman teaches us something else as well.

Her prayer is not primarily for herself. She persists because she loves her daughter. Love drives her toward Christ.

That is why her persistence feels so powerful. She is not attempting to win a theological argument. She is trying to bring someone she loves into the reach of mercy.

And she trusts that the mercy of Christ is greater than every boundary standing between her and Jesus.

Even the crumbs will do.

Except, of course, the Gospel reveals that there are not merely crumbs. There is abundance. There is healing. There is mercy enough even for someone whom everyone else in the story seems prepared to send away.

That is good news for those of us who occasionally wonder whether we belong at the table at all.

The Christian life is not sustained by our ability to maintain spiritual intensity. It is sustained by grace.

We fall. We become distracted. We grow tired. We become angry. We sometimes stop praying altogether.

And then, by grace, we return.

That may be one of the quietest forms of faithfulness there is.

Return to prayer. Return to the table. Return to the community. Return to the promises made at baptism. Return again to the mercy of Christ.

Because great faith is not necessarily believing that everything will happen as we expect.

Great faith is trusting that the mercy of Christ is still worth seeking when nothing is happening as we expect.

The woman from Canaan knew that.

She kept returning.

And when everything else had been stripped away, she still had three words:

Lord, help me.

Perhaps that is enough for us, too.

Faithfulness in Small Places

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Book Two's title will be "Faithfulness in Perseverance" and will pick up a few weeks after "Faithfulness in Small Places" and will follow Jonah as he navigates his Celebration of New Ministry, his job search, and all of his usual self-doubt as he wrestles with vocational uncertainty, exhaustion, and what it means to keep showing up when faithfulness becomes difficult.

Book Three's title will be Faithfulness in the Wilderness and will follow Jonah and his congregation as they enter a season of wilderness of their own, while Jonah learns to navigate his new life as a bivocational priest.

I truly, truly appreciate all of your support in this and would like to give thanks to a few people who have helped with the creation of this series in a variety of ways.

First, to Dr. Laura Smith for putting up with me as her assistant band director-turned-seminarian. I've learned so much under your leadership and have enjoyed being able to return in my new role at Byng and still being able to assist with the band when my room is (rarely) empty.

Second, to Canon Kate Bond whose courses in Congregational Vitality have really inspired how the Rev. Thorne goes about his day.

Third, to Josh Turner for giving me the opportunity and trust in me to work with the students that I do.

Fourth, to Carrie Boyd and Jordan Ames, who have both been catalysts for me to continue to write, and their feedback has been invaluable.

Fifth, to my wife, Sarah, for never once saying, “Stop this stupid little hobby of yours and find a higher-paying job!” Instead, you have supported me (and even read Book One!) and have made space for this newfound hobby of mine (which is far more quiet than writing music all the time). I love you and truly appreciate your support.

And finally, to all of you for continuing to support this writing ministry of mine. As most of you know, I am no longer a band director but a paraprofessional so I could spend more time with my growing family. With that has come a dip in my finances, and your support has made it possible for me to keep writing without feeling as though this little ministry has to be the first thing sacrificed.

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O Eternal God, bless all schools, colleges, and universities that they may be lively centers for sound learning, new discovery, and the pursuit of wisdom; and grant that those who teach and those who learn may find you to be the source of all truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And now, on a different subject…

For those who have been asking about what comes after Faithfulness in Small Places, there is certainly more to come!

I have the next two titles.

You won’t get them… yet!

However, Jonah’s story is going to ask what it looks like to be faithful when simply persevering becomes a vocation and then, what faithfulness looks like when a familiar road disappears, and one finds themselves in the desert.

Both titles will be announced on Thursday and will no longer be simply “Book Two” or “Book Three.”

Peace.

Faithfulness in Small Places

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Jesus made them get into the boat and sent them ahead to the other side. They did not wander away. They did not misunderstand the directions. They did not make some terrible decision that landed them in trouble.

They were obedient, and still, the wind was against them.

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By the time Jesus comes toward them, they have apparently spent much of the night fighting the sea. Matthew tells us that the boat was “battered by the waves.” They are far from land, tired, frightened, and getting nowhere quickly.

Sometimes we carry an unspoken assumption about faith: if we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, things ought to work out.

If we pray enough, perhaps the wind will die down. If we discern carefully enough, perhaps the path will become obvious. If we are faithful enough, perhaps life will become easier.

But the disciples are faithful here, and the wind is still against them. Their struggle is not evidence that Jesus sent them the wrong way.

Then, sometime early in the morning, Jesus comes toward them. Not after the storm. Not once the disciples have reached the shore. Not after they have managed to get themselves together.

Jesus comes in the struggle.

In fact, Christ comes toward them across the very thing that has frightened and exhausted them all night—of course, they’re terrified.

“It’s a ghost!” they cry.

And immediately Jesus answers:

“Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Peter, being Peter, decides that simply seeing this is apparently insufficient.

“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

And Jesus says one word.

“Come.”

So Peter does, and for a moment, somehow, Peter walks across the water toward Jesus. Then Peter notices the wind. Fear takes over, and Peter begins to sink. From the water comes one of the shortest and perhaps most honest prayers in Scripture:

“Lord, save me!”

Jesus immediately reaches out a hand. Immediately. There is no examination first. No demand that Peter demonstrate stronger faith. No requirement that Peter explain why fear took over. No lecture delivered while Peter sinks beneath the waves.

Jesus reaches out and catches him.

We sometimes turn this story into a lesson about having enough faith. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Ignore the storm. Believe strongly enough and perhaps you too can walk across the water.

But I am increasingly convinced that the miracle here is not simply that Peter walked on water. The miracle is that when Peter sank, Christ caught him. Peter doesn’t possess some heroic, unwavering faith. Jesus even calls it “little faith.”

But little faith is not no faith.

Little faith can still cry out:

“Lord, save me.”

And Christ comes in the struggle.

That matters because most of us spend considerably more time sinking than walking on water.

There are seasons when the wind simply seems to be against us. Grief. Illness. Exhaustion. Anxiety. Work that seems to accomplish very little. Relationships we cannot repair. Prayers that seem unanswered. Decisions in which no option feels particularly clear.

Sometimes there is nothing especially dramatic about it. Sometimes we are simply tired. When those seasons come, it is tempting to assume that something has gone wrong spiritually.

Perhaps I should have more faith. Perhaps I should pray harder. Perhaps I should be stronger. Perhaps, if I were doing this correctly, I would not be struggling so much.

But the disciples were exactly where Jesus had sent them, and the wind was still against them. Faithfulness does not mean that the storm never comes. Faithfulness does not mean that fear never overwhelms us. Faithfulness may sometimes look less like standing triumphantly upon the waves and more like sinking into them with enough breath left to say:

“Lord, save me.”

Because Jesus comes in the struggle.

The most beautiful part of the story happens after Peter is caught—Jesus gets into the boat. The story doesn’t end with Peter learning how to walk permanently upon the sea. Peter does not become someone who no longer needs the boat. Jesus joins the disciples in it.

This battered little community, exhausted from fighting the wind through the night, suddenly discovers Christ in the boat with them.

And there, they worship.

“Truly you are the Son of God.”

That is where this Gospel leaves us. Not with a promise that faithful people will always walk above the chaos. Not with a promise that the wind will never blow against us, but with something better.

Christ comes to us there. In the battered boat. In the frightening night. In the unanswered questions. In our little faith. In the moment when all we can manage is, “Lord, save me.”

Jesus comes in the struggle.

Faithfulness in Small Places

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I pray these words repeatedly throughout the day. They are a kind of anchor for me, a prayer to which I can return whenever my thoughts begin to drift, race, or become tangled.

Sometimes, after repeating the prayer for a while, I simply sit in silence, try to quiet my mind, and rest in God's presence. When my attention wanders, and it always does, I return gently to the prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of the living God,
have mercy on me, a sinner.

At other times, I bring forward whatever has been troubling me. I ask the Holy Spirit for help, and then I begin working through it, often aloud. I name the fear, frustration, grief, or uncertainty, trusting that God is present even before I understand what I am trying to say.

Whichever path the prayer takes, I find myself in a different frame of mind by the time I finish. The problem may not have disappeared. I may not have received an answer. But something within me has become quieter, steadier, and more open to grace.

The prayer does not force God to come near.

It reminds me that Christ is already near and that I am always in need of mercy.

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Classrooms are being opened again. Bulletin boards are going up, lesson plans are being written, teachers are learning new names, arranging desks, attending meetings, answering emails, and trying to remember where everything was placed at the end of May.

And somewhere, perhaps already, a teacher is looking at everything that must be done and thinking, I do not have enough.

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Not enough time, enough supplies, enough help, not enough patience, or not enough energy to meet every need that will soon walk through the classroom door.

The disciples must have felt something similar when they looked out over the crowd gathered around Jesus.

The day was nearly over, and the place was originally deserted. Thousands of people were now gathered and hungry. The disciples could see the problem clearly, and they had arrived at what seemed like the only reasonable solution:

Send the people away.

Let them go into the villages and find their own food.

But Jesus answered, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”

The disciples looked at what they had and replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”

Nothing here but five loaves and two fish. That is the language of insufficiency. It is what we say when the need before us is greater than the resources within us. We have nothing here but one teacher and thirty students. Nothing here but an outdated textbook, a box of dry-erase markers, and a copier that jams whenever anyone is in a hurry. Nothing here but the knowledge we have gathered, the patience we can manage, and the grace to begin again tomorrow.

It doesn’t feel like enough.

And honestly, it probably isn’t enough, at least, by itself.

The disciples were correct about that much. Five loaves and two fish could not feed the crowd. The Gospel doesn’t ask us to pretend that limited resources are unlimited. It doesn’t ask us to call scarcity abundance or exhaustion faithfulness.

Jesus does not tell the disciples to believe harder until the loaves become sufficient.

Jesus says, “Bring them here to me.”

The miracle doesn’t begin with the disciples discovering that they secretly had more than they thought. The miracle begins when they place what they have into Christ’s hands.

Five loaves. Two fish.

A small and ordinary offering.

Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it back to the disciples. The disciples then give it to the crowd. The disciples don’t create the abundance, they participate in it. They offer what they have and Christ provides what they cannot.

That is an important distinction for anyone whose vocation involves caring for others.

Teachers are asked to give much: offer knowledge, creativity, patience, discipline, humor, compassion, and grace. They teach children to read, write, calculate, question, imagine, cooperate, and begin again after failure.

And teachers may never know how far those offerings travel.

A Teacher may explain something in August that does not truly take root until years later. A word of encouragement may remain in a student’s memory long after every worksheet has been forgotten. A child may not remember the day’s lesson, but may remember that one adult looked across the classroom and saw someone worth teaching. A teacher may never witness the full fruit.

One lesson becomes curiosity. One patient correction becomes confidence. One second chance becomes mercy that a student later extends to someone else. Once classroom becomes thousands of lives touched across the years of a career.

The five loaves and two fish travel much farther than anyone expects, but this doesn’t mean that teachers must become the bread.

Too often, we praise teachers by celebrating the sacrifices they make. We tell stories about teachers purchasing supplies with their personal money, answering messages late at night, working through lunch, arriving early, staying late, and coming back to the school while sick because preparing for a substitute feels harder than simply suffering through the day.

We call that dedication, and sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s exhaustion wearing the clothes of faithfulness.

Before Jesus fed the crowd, Jesus withdrew.

Matthew tells us that Jesus went alone by boat to a deserted place. This Withdrawal comes in the shadow of grief, after the death of John the Baptist. Jesus seeks solitude, prayer, and rest.

The crowd follows anyway.

When Jesus sees them, compassion stirs and the sick are healed, the hungry fed.

But the crowd’s need does not make the withdrawal wrong.

Jesus doesn’t go to the deserted place because every need has been met, he withdraws while the world is still full of hunger, sickness, grief, and unfinished work.

There will always be another person who needs something.

There will always be another assignment to grade, another email to answer, another lesson to improve, another meeting to prepare for, and another child whose needs seem too important to leave until tomorrow.

But even Jesus went away to a deserted place. Rest is not proof that we have stopped caring, rest is an acknowledgement that we are creatures, not the creator. The world is sustained by God, not by our exhaustion.

May those with ears listen.

Calling in sick is not abandoning the students. Taking a personal day is not betraying the vocation. Leaving the laptop closed for an evening is not laziness. Allowing a substitute to teach imperfectly is not a failure.

The Gospel doesn’t command teachers to give until there is nothing left. Christ doesn’t ask teachers to become the meal, consumed by every need placed before them.

Christ asks for the loaves, “Bring them to me.”

Bring the knowledge you have. Bring the patience you have, even when it feels thin. Bring your preparation, your creativity, and your experience. Bring your mistakes and your willingness to try again. Bring your concern for the student who struggles and your delight in the one who suddenly understands. Bring your frustration, your weariness, and your fear of what you have will not be enough.

Bring it all to Christ, then trust Christ with the multiplication.

The teacher is not the classroom’s savior, or the administrator the school’s savior, or the parent the child’s savior.

Christ is already present.

Christ is present in the teaching, in the learning, the patience, the correction, the laughter, the silence, and even in the moment when nothing seems to be working.

Our calling is not to create abundance through sheer effort, our calling is ordinary faithfulness.

We bring the loaves, we offer the fish, we distribute what has been placed into our hands.

And when we’re tired, we follow Jesus into the deserted place: we pray, we grieve, we become quiet, and we rest.

Then, when compassion calls us back, we return. Not because we possess everything the world needs, but because Christ can receive even our smallest offering and make it nourishment for someone else.

Teachers may look at the year ahead and see only five loaves and two fish.

A limited budget. A crowded classroom. A tired mind. A heart that is willing but already carrying more than most people know.

Yet Christ doesn’t despise the small offering.

“Bring them to me.”

Bring what you have. Receive what you need. Rest when you are weary.

And trust that, through the grace of Christ, what seems small may feed more people than you will ever know.

Amen.

One small personal note: now that summer is drawing to a close, The Sparrow’s Nest will return to its regular posting schedule—Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. I am glad to be returning to this rhythm with you.

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A mustard seed vanishes into the soil. Yeast disappears into flour. Treasure lies buried beneath an ordinary field. A pearl waits unnoticed among countless others, and a fishing net fills beneath the water where no one standing on the shore can see what it holds.

None of these parables begins with a spectacle.

When a mustard seed is planted, there is no flash of light or sounding of trumpets. There is no immediate proof that something important has happened. The seed simply disappears beneath the earth, and for a while the ground looks exactly as it did before.

The same is true of the yeast. Once it has been mixed into the flour, it can no longer be separated from everything around it. It is hidden within the dough. Yet something has changed. Given enough time, what appeared still and lifeless begins to rise.

The treasure was already in the field long before anyone discovered it. The pearl was already precious before the merchant recognized its worth. The net may already be filling while the surface of the water remains calm and undisturbed.

This is often how the Kingdom of God comes among us.

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It begins quietly, in places that do not seem especially important. It takes root in people and communities the world might easily overlook.

We sometimes imagine that the work of God must be grand in order to matter. We expect crowded sanctuaries, sweeping movements, changed laws, growing institutions, and results that can be measured and displayed. We want the full-grown tree, while Christ continues placing seeds into our hands.

Yet much of the Kingdom is built through small acts of love, offered by ordinary people who are working alongside and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

It may look like a meal carried to someone who is grieving, or a child who is welcomed rather than merely endured. It may be a lonely person remembered, a stranger invited to the table, or a wrong confessed before excuses can take over. Sometimes it is an apology. Sometimes it is choosing to remain beside someone who has become too tired to carry a burden alone.

Most of these moments will never draw a crowd. They will not make the news or appear in an annual report. Often, no one will know about them except the person who offered the love and the person who received it.

Even so, this is how the Kingdom takes root.

A mustard seed may be small, but small things are not necessarily unimportant. Yeast may be hidden, but hidden things are not necessarily inactive. Treasure may be buried, but that does not mean it is absent.

Grace does not always arrive with thunder. Sometimes it enters so quietly that we recognize it only afterward, when we notice that something around us—or within us—has begun to rise.

That is one of the challenges of Christian life. The world has trained us to notice spectacle. Jesus trains his disciples to notice the Kingdom.

He points them toward seeds and bread dough, fields and pearls, fishing nets and household treasures. These are not strange or distant objects. They belong to ordinary life. Jesus is showing us that the Kingdom is not removed from the world in which we live. It is breaking into that world through the people, places, and materials already around us.

The question is whether we have learned to recognize it.

Can we see the Kingdom in an exhausted parent who somehow finds the patience to listen?

Can we see it in a small congregation that continues gathering faithfully, even when there are more empty pews than occupied ones?

Can we see it in the teacher who notices the child everyone else has already dismissed?

Can we recognize it when someone chooses mercy, even though resentment would be easier?

Can we see it in bread broken and wine poured, in water blessed, in hands extended, and in peace offered between people who might otherwise remain divided?

These things may not look impressive by the standards of the world, but the Kingdom has never depended upon the world’s standards.

The world looks at a mustard seed and sees something insignificant. Christ sees branches spreading wide enough for birds to build their nests.

The world sees a bowl of flour and an unfinished meal. Christ sees bread rising.

The world looks at a field and sees only dirt. Christ sees treasure.

The world looks at a person and asks whether that person is useful, successful, respectable, productive, or deserving. Christ sees someone who bears the image of God.

We are called to learn to see as Christ sees.

The Kingdom may be nearer than we imagine. It is already stirring beneath the surface and growing in places we have dismissed as too small, too tired, too broken, or too ordinary to matter.

But the parables of the treasure and the pearl remind us that recognizing the Kingdom also places a claim upon our lives.

The person who finds treasure in the field sells everything in order to purchase that field. The merchant who discovers the pearl of great value does the same. Neither of them simply pauses to admire what has been found. Each one rearranges his life around it.

At first, that may sound harsh. Then we notice the joy.

Jesus tells us that the person who discovers the treasure goes “in his joy” and sells everything he owns. This is not the sorrowful surrender of someone who has been forced to give up all that he loves. It is the eager response of someone who has discovered something worth more than everything he possessed before.

The Kingdom is not one more possession to squeeze into an already crowded life. It is the treasure that teaches us how to value everything else. Once we have recognized it, we cannot continue arranging our lives in quite the same way.

Love becomes more valuable than pride.

Mercy becomes more valuable than proving ourselves right.

Community becomes more valuable than absolute independence.

Faithfulness becomes more valuable than recognition.

People become more valuable than the systems that were supposedly created to serve them.

The Kingdom asks everything of us because it opens before us the only life truly worth possessing.

Then Jesus turns to the image of a net.

The net is thrown into the sea, and it gathers fish of every kind.

Every kind.

It does not collect only the impressive fish or the respectable fish. It does not gather only those that already know how to behave properly inside a net. It is cast widely, drawing in whatever it encounters.

That should tell us something about the Church.

We have not been called to stand upon the shore deciding who is worthy of being gathered. Our task is to cast the net.

We proclaim good news. We welcome strangers. We feed people who are hungry. We forgive. We baptize. We gather around the table. We love without first demanding that someone prove worthy of being loved.

The final sorting belongs to God. Jesus gives that responsibility to the angels, not to us.

That does not mean good and evil are indistinguishable. Nor does it mean that our choices do not matter. The conclusion of the parable is severe because evil will not be permitted to remain forever. Everything that wounds, enslaves, diminishes, and destroys will finally be brought beneath the judgment of God.

For those who have suffered under the cruelty of the world, that judgment is more than a threat. It is also a promise.

Evil will not have the final word.

Cruelty will not have the final word.

Death will not have the final word.

The Kingdom may be hidden now, but it will not remain hidden forever. The seed will grow. The dough will rise. The treasure will be uncovered, and the net will be drawn onto the shore.

After telling these stories, Jesus asks the disciples, “Have you understood all this?”

They answer yes, perhaps with more confidence than they have earned.

Jesus does not correct them. Instead, he offers one final image: the master of a household who brings out treasures both new and old.

The Kingdom teaches us to hold together what we have received from those who came before us and what the Spirit is revealing among us now. We need not discard something simply because it is old, nor should we reject something simply because it is unfamiliar. We bring out every treasure that can serve the work of love.

We carry old prayers that have rested upon the lips of generations. We also make room for a new song rising in someone who has only just discovered grace.

We return to the ancient waters of baptism and rejoice in the new life emerging from them.

We receive bread and wine, as Christians have done century after century, and yet every gathering around the table creates a community that has never existed in precisely that form before.

Old treasures and new ones. Seeds and branches. Flour and bread. Hidden things slowly becoming visible.

This is the work that has been placed into our hands.

We plant trees beneath whose branches we may never sit. We mix yeast into dough and trust the quiet work taking place within it. We search for treasure in fields others have abandoned. We cast the net widely, and we bring forth whatever is old or new that can reveal the love of God.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we participate in the work of the Kingdom by creating signs and spaces of genuine love.

We may not always witness the growth. We may not feel the dough beginning to rise. There will be seasons when the soil appears unchanged and the water seems empty. We may wonder whether anything is happening at all.

But hidden does not mean absent.

A quiet grace may still be working.

A buried seed may already be opening.

The Kingdom is among us, even now, growing in people and places the world has overlooked.

And every act of genuine love allows the world to glimpse what has been there all along.

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Birthdays have a way of making us take inventory, whether we intend to or not. We look at where we are, where we expected to be, what has changed, and what remains stubbornly unfinished.

This particular birthday arrived alongside both disappointment and gratitude.

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A few weeks ago, I applied for a diocesan position that I genuinely wanted. Several people encouraged me to apply, and their encouragement allowed me to become hopeful—perhaps more hopeful than I ordinarily permit myself to be.

The position brought together several things I deeply love: the Church, young people, formation, leadership, and the possibility of helping others recognize their own vocations while they are still young enough to imagine their lives differently.

I could see myself doing the work.

For a little while, I could also see what that work might make possible for my family.

But there were candidates with stronger experience in the particular areas the position required, and the diocese chose not to move forward with me.

There is no villain in that story. No injustice that needs to be exposed. Good and faithful people applied for the same work, and only one person can be selected.

Still, it hurt.

It is possible to understand a decision and still grieve it. It is possible to hope that the chosen candidate flourishes while also mourning the future that briefly seemed possible. It is possible to trust that life will continue while admitting that the road ahead feels narrower than it did before.

Part of the disappointment is financial.

I work as a paraprofessional after leaving band directing to have more time with my family, and my budget is tight. There is little margin for emergencies or the ordinary costs of living. Every unexpected expense becomes a calculation. Every hope must eventually pass through the much less inspiring question, “Can we afford it?”

That wears on a person.

Yet I do not want to speak about my work at Byng as though it were merely a financial obstacle or a place from which I am desperate to escape.

I love Byng and I feel at home there.

I love the students, even when the days are difficult. I value the people with whom I work. There is something deeply meaningful about being present with young people on days when they are frustrated, ashamed, angry, or convinced that everyone has already given up on them.

The work does not always look impressive from the outside. Much of it is quiet. Some days are monotonous. Other days are overwhelming. But every so often, a student makes a better decision, tells the truth, completes the work, apologizes, or begins to believe that failure is not a permanent identity.

Those moments matter.

I only wish that work so necessary to the daily life of a school also provided greater financial stability for the people called to do it.

That is the tension I am carrying into this new year of life: I am grateful for a place where I belong, even as I wonder how long belonging can compensate for a salary that does not adequately support a family.

I do not have a tidy theological explanation for the diocesan decision. I am increasingly suspicious of explanations that transform every rejection into a secret promotion or insist that every closed door means something better is waiting just beyond it.

Sometimes disappointment is simply disappointment.

Sometimes faithfulness means refusing to pretend that something does not hurt.

By the grace of God, I will survive.

Not triumphantly, perhaps. Not without anxiety, frustration, or a few moments of self-pity. But grace does not depend upon my ability to look untroubled.

My Rule of Life is grounded in “faithfulness in ordinary time”—a life sustained not by heroic spiritual intensity, but by the freedom to return. Return to baptism. Return to love. Return to prayer. Return to the work before me as strength and circumstances permit.

This appears to be one of those seasons.

And so I return.

I return to my family. I return to Byng. I return to prayer and the life of the Church. And I return to the book.

The second novel is now approximately thirty chapters long.

That feels remarkable to write.

The book is not finished. There is still considerable work ahead, but it is no longer simply an idea, an outline, or a collection of disconnected scenes. It has become a story with its own movement and weight.

The characters have continued walking even when I have felt tired. They have surprised me, frustrated me, and occasionally said things I did not realize I needed to hear until the words appeared on the page. The story has moved well beyond its opening chapters, and the characters are now facing consequences and decisions that have been quietly gathering since the beginning.

Writing is a strange act of hope.

An author sits before an unfinished page and behaves as though something is waiting on the other side.

Perhaps vocation works in much the same way.

We are rarely shown the entire road. More often, we are given a page, a classroom, a student, a sermon, a meal, a family that needs us, or a sentence that must be written.

We offer what we have. We remain where love has placed us. We keep listening for what may come next.

I do not know what the coming year will bring. I do not know when the financial pressure will ease. I do not know which doors will open, which will remain closed, or whether the next part of the journey will look anything like what I have imagined.

But I know that I have reached another birthday.

I know that Byng has become home. I know that the book has reached thirty chapters. I know that rejection does not erase vocation.

And I know that faithfulness is sometimes nothing more glamorous than returning to the page after a difficult week and writing the next sentence.

The budget is tight.

The disappointment is real.

The future remains uncertain.

But the story is not over.

By the grace of God, neither am I.

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“Listen! A sower went out to sow.”
—Matthew 13:3, NRSV

The sower in Jesus’ parable is not especially careful.

Some seed falls on the path, where the birds immediately devour it. Some lands on rocky ground, where the soil is too shallow to sustain life. Some falls among thorns and is eventually choked. Only a portion reaches good soil and produces a harvest.

Any sensible farmer might object to this method.

Seed was valuable. It represented food, income, and the possibility of another season. Why scatter it onto hardened paths? Why throw it among rocks and weeds? Why not carefully inspect the ground, prepare the most promising soil, and place each seed exactly where it has the greatest chance of success?

Yet the sower goes out and scatters seed everywhere.

The path receives seed. The rocks receive seed. The thorns receive seed. The good earth receives seed.

The sower does not reserve the seed only for the ground most likely to produce a return.

And that tells us something about the grace of God.

The Generosity of the Sower

It is easy to read this parable primarily as an examination of ourselves.

Am I good soil?

Is my faith shallow?

Are worldly concerns choking the life of Christ within me?

Have I allowed my heart to become hardened?

These are worthwhile questions. Jesus clearly invites hearers to consider how the word is received. But before the parable asks us to examine the soil, it shows us the character of the Sower.

The Sower is astonishingly generous.

God does not wait for perfect conditions before speaking grace. God does not inspect a human life and decide whether that person is sufficiently promising, sufficiently moral, sufficiently disciplined, or sufficiently religious to receive the seed of the kingdom.

The word is scattered freely.

Grace falls upon those prepared to receive it and those who are not. The Gospel is proclaimed to saints and sinners, believers and skeptics, the attentive and the distracted. Christ comes among people whose hearts are open, people whose hearts are wounded, and people who are not yet certain whether any of this can be trusted.

The Church is not given the seed so that we may guard it, ration it, or distribute it only among people who appear likely to respond correctly.

The Church is called to sow.

We Are Not Only One Kind of Soil

We often imagine that the four soils represent four permanent kinds of people.

There are hardened people, shallow people, distracted people, and faithful people. Naturally, we tend to place ourselves somewhere near the good soil.

But human hearts are rarely so simple.

At different moments, each of us may resemble every soil in the parable.

There are times when the word of grace cannot penetrate us. Pain, anger, fear, disappointment, or pride may harden the surface. The seed falls, but we cannot yet receive it.

There are times when faith springs up quickly. We experience a powerful moment of prayer, a beautiful liturgy, a moving sermon, or a renewed sense of purpose. But when difficulty comes, the roots prove shallower than we imagined.

There are times when the life of faith is choked by what Jesus calls “the cares of the world and the lure of wealth” (Matthew 13:22, NRSV). We become so consumed by responsibilities, ambitions, anxieties, possessions, and endless demands that the word remains within us but bears little fruit.

And there are seasons when the soil has been softened. The word takes root. Something grows. Mercy becomes more natural. Forgiveness becomes possible. Generosity emerges. Love produces a harvest beyond anything we could have manufactured through willpower alone.

The condition of the soil is not necessarily a final judgment upon a person. Soil can change.

Hard ground can be broken open.

Rocks can be removed.

Thorns can be cleared.

Exhausted earth can rest and become fertile again.

The work may be slow. It may occur beneath the surface long before anything becomes visible. But the Sower does not abandon the field.

The Seed Beneath the Surface

Much of the Christian life is hidden.

We prefer dramatic stories of transformation. We like moments in which everything changes at once: the lost are found, the sinner repents, the broken life is restored, and the barren ground immediately becomes fruitful.

Sometimes grace does work dramatically.

More often, the seed disappears into the earth.

For a time, there is no visible evidence that anything is happening. The soil looks much as it did before. Yet beneath the surface, the seed is opening. Roots are beginning to form. Life is moving quietly through the darkness.

This is especially important for those who feel that faith has become uneventful.

Perhaps prayer feels dry.

Perhaps Scripture seems difficult to hear.

Perhaps worship has become routine.

Perhaps grief, illness, exhaustion, caregiving, or disappointment has left little energy for anything beyond getting through the day.

The absence of visible growth does not mean that grace is absent.

The kingdom of heaven often begins underground.

A person may believe that nothing is happening while the Spirit is quietly deepening roots. A community may appear small and unsuccessful while love is being cultivated among its members. A prayer may seem unanswered while grace is preparing something that cannot yet be seen.

Faithfulness is not always dramatic. Sometimes faithfulness is simply allowing the seed to remain.

Sometimes it is returning to prayer after wandering away. Sometimes it is coming again to the Eucharistic table. Sometimes it is asking forgiveness. Sometimes it is choosing mercy when resentment would be easier. Sometimes it is waking in the morning and consenting once more to the life of Christ.

The harvest begins with small acts of return.

The Thorns We Have Learned to Accept

Jesus speaks plainly about the thorns: “the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing” (Matthew 13:22, NRSV).

The danger is not merely that the world contains obviously wicked things. The thorns may be ordinary and even respectable.

Busyness can become a thorn.

The need to appear successful can become a thorn.

The constant demand to be productive can become a thorn.

The fear of disappointing others can become a thorn.

Even service to the Church can become a thorn when ministry is no longer rooted in prayer, love, and the grace of baptism.

The thorns are whatever consumes so much space that the word of God cannot breathe within us.

Christian discipleship therefore includes the humble work of clearing space.

Silence clears space.

Sabbath clears space.

Confession clears space.

Generosity clears space.

Prayer clears space.

Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ clears space—not because the Eucharist removes every difficulty, but because the sacrament reorders us around the self-giving love of Jesus.

We do not clear the soil so that God will finally love us.

We clear the soil because love has already been scattered upon us, and we long for that love to bear fruit.

An Impossible Harvest

Jesus concludes the parable with abundance.

The seed that falls on good soil produces “a hundredfold, in one case sixty, and in another thirty” (Matthew 13:23, NRSV).

This is not a modest return. It is an extravagant harvest.

The same parable that begins with apparent waste ends with abundance.

Some seed is lost. Some growth withers. Some plants are choked. Yet the final harvest is greater than anyone might reasonably expect.

This is the hope of the kingdom.

God is not defeated by the hardness of the path. God is not defeated by the shallowness of the rocks. God is not defeated by the persistence of the thorns.

The Sower continues to sow, and the harvest continues to come.

We may not see the fullness of that harvest. The seeds we scatter through kindness, prayer, hospitality, teaching, forgiveness, and quiet faithfulness may grow long after we have forgotten them. We may never know how a small act of mercy became part of someone else’s healing.

Our calling is not to control the harvest.

Our calling is to receive the seed, tend the soil, and sow generously.

So let the Church become reckless with grace.

Let mercy fall upon the deserving and the undeserving. Let welcome be extended before worthiness can be proven. Let the word of reconciliation be spoken even where the ground appears hardened. Let hope be scattered among rocks, weeds, wounds, and uncertainty.

For the Sower has gone out to sow.

The seed is still being scattered.

And somewhere beneath the surface, the kingdom of heaven is already beginning to grow.

Amen.

Catch more sermons in brief and follow the story of The Rev. Jonah Thorne in:

Faithfulness in Small Places

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Some Sundays the lectionary gives us comfort, blessing, birds of the air, lilies of the field, green pastures, still waters, and Jesus saying something like, “Do not be afraid.”

And some Sundays the lectionary gives us Abraham, Isaac, wood, fire, a knife, and a mountain.

So here we are.

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There is no use pretending Genesis 22 is easy. It is not. It is one of the most difficult stories in all of Scripture. A parent is told to offer up a child. A child walks beside his father carrying wood for the sacrifice. Isaac notices what is missing and asks the question no parent would ever want to hear:

“The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”

And Abraham answers, “God will provide.”

That answer can sound calm on the page.

I am not convinced it felt calm in Abraham’s chest.

This is a terrifying story. It should bother us. It should make us uncomfortable. It should make us pause before we rush too quickly toward a lesson or a tidy moral.

Because if we are not careful, we can make this story say something cruel. We can make it sound as though faith means never questioning. We can make it sound as though obedience means silence in the face of horror. We can make it sound as though God delights in testing people to the breaking point.

And that is dangerous.

Too many people have been wounded by religious voices that demanded sacrifice from them in the name of holiness. Too many have been told that pain was proof of faith. Too many have been told to endure harm quietly because it was supposedly noble, or righteous, or godly.

So let us say clearly: the God revealed in Jesus Christ is not a God who delights in the suffering of children. The God revealed in Jesus Christ is not a God who requires cruelty in order to be pleased. The God revealed in Jesus Christ is not a God who calls evil good.

And at the center of this strange and frightening story, the knife is stopped.

The child is not sacrificed. The voice from heaven interrupts the violence. The ram is provided. The story does not end with death. It ends with provision. Abraham names the place, “The LORD will provide.”

Not “the LORD has demanded everything.” Not “the LORD has destroyed what was loved.” Not “the LORD has abandoned us on the mountain.” But, “The LORD will provide.”

That does not make the story simple. It does not make the story easy. It does not remove the trembling from Abraham’s hands or the questions from Isaac’s heart. But it does show us something important: at the edge of death, God provides life.

At the edge of loss, God provides mercy.

At the edge of the impossible, God provides a way that Abraham could not have made for himself.

And maybe that is where Psalm 13 comes in.

Because Genesis 22 gives us a story in which Abraham says very little. He rises early. He saddles the donkey. He cuts the wood. He walks. He answers Isaac. He builds the altar. He reaches out his hand.

But we are not told much about what Abraham feels. Psalm 13 gives words to what Genesis leaves silent.

“How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?”

“How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?”

That is not polite religion. That is not polished spirituality. That is not the kind of prayer we usually put on a decorative pillow. But it is Scripture. Which means there is room in faith for the question, “How long?”

There is room in prayer for pain. There is room in the life of God’s people for bewilderment, grief, exhaustion, fear, and even complaint. Sometimes the most faithful prayer is not, “Everything is fine.” Sometimes the most faithful prayer is, “How long, O LORD?”

How long will this hurt? How long will I be afraid? How long will this family struggle? How long will this church feel small? How long will this grief sit in my chest? How long will the world keep breaking the hearts of the people trying to love it?

Faith does not require us to lie. Faith does not require us to call the mountain easy. Faith does not require us to pretend the knife is not frightening. Faith is allowed to ask, “How long?”

But Psalm 13 does not end in despair.

After the questions, after the sorrow, after the complaint, the psalmist says:

“But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.”

That turn is not cheap. The psalmist does not say, “Actually, everything was fine the whole time.” The psalmist does not say, “I was silly to be sad.” The psalmist does not say, “Real believers never struggle.” The psalmist says, in effect, “This hurts. I do not understand. I am tired. I feel forgotten. And still, I will trust in steadfast love.”

That is not denial. That is faith.

Not shiny faith. Not impressive faith. Not faith that looks good on a brochure.

But real faith.

The kind of faith that survives the mountain. The kind of faith that keeps praying through sorrow. The kind of faith that waits for provision even when no ram is yet visible in the thicket.

And then Paul, in Romans, gives us another way to understand what God provides.

Paul writes, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The wages of sin is death. That is one of those lines many of us have heard so often that we may forget how serious it is. Sin pays wages. Sin has consequences.

Sin is not merely a list of naughty things. Sin is not simply a series of mistakes that make God irritated. Sin is the whole death-dealing system that draws us away from love, away from mercy, away from truth, away from one another, away from God.

Sin turns people into objects. Sin turns neighbors into enemies. Sin turns fear into policy. Sin turns religion into control. Sin turns the self inward until the soul forgets how to love. And Paul says the wages of that way of life are death.

Not always immediate physical death, though sometimes sin certainly brings that too. But death in all its forms. Deadened compassion. Deadened joy. Deadened imagination. Deadened community. Deadened hope.

But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Notice the difference.

Sin pays wages. God gives a gift.

Sin operates like a brutal employer. Sin pays out what has been earned in the currency of death.

But God gives freely. Grace is not a paycheck. Grace is not a prize for the spiritually impressive.

Grace is not a reward for those who have never trembled on the mountain, never cried out with the psalmist, never failed, never feared, never fallen short.

Grace is gift.

And baptism is where Paul tells us to begin remembering that gift.

Earlier in this same chapter, Paul says that those baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into Christ’s death, and raised to walk in newness of life.

So the Christian life is not an attempt to earn divine love. The Christian life is what happens after divine love has already claimed us. We do not practice mercy so that God will be gracious. We practice mercy because God is gracious. We do not welcome the stranger so that God will notice us. We welcome the stranger because, in Christ, God has welcomed us. We do not offer the cup of cold water in order to purchase salvation. We offer the cup because eternal life has already begun to take root in us.

And that brings us to Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel.

Jesus says:

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”

And then Jesus keeps going.

Whoever welcomes a prophet receives a prophet’s reward. Whoever welcomes a righteous person receives the reward of the righteous. And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly, Jesus says, none of these will lose their reward.

A cup of cold water.

After Genesis 22, that almost feels too small.

We have gone from the mountain of Moriah to a cup of cold water. From Abraham and Isaac to something so ordinary we might miss it. No thunder. No altar. No knife. No ram caught in a thicket.

Just a thirsty person and someone willing to notice.

But maybe that is exactly the point. Most of us will not be Abraham on Mount Moriah. Most of us will not face a moment that dramatic, that terrible, that strange.

But every one of us will have the chance to give a cup of cold water. Every one of us will have the chance to welcome. Every one of us will have the chance to practice mercy in some ordinary, unspectacular, easily overlooked way.

A text message. A meal. A ride. A chair pulled out. A hand on a shoulder. A prayer whispered because there are no better words. A listening ear. A refusal to make someone’s suffering smaller than it is. A willingness to say, “I do not know how to fix this, but I will sit here with you.”

That is not small in the kingdom of God.

The world is very impressed by scale. The world likes big numbers, big platforms, big performances, big personalities, big victories.

But Jesus keeps pointing to small things. A mustard seed. A widow’s mite. A child. A lost sheep. A little yeast. A cup of cold water.

The kingdom of heaven is not always announced by spectacle.

Sometimes it arrives quietly, through ordinary mercy. Sometimes God provides through the hands of someone who noticed. That may be the thread running through all these readings. On the mountain, God provides the ram.

In the psalm, God provides steadfast love strong enough to hold lament. In Romans, God provides the free gift of eternal life in Christ. In Matthew, God provides the cup through the hands of a disciple.

God provides. And sometimes, by grace, that provision passes through us.

That is a humbling thought.

It means our small acts of love are not as small as we think. It means ordinary faithfulness matters. It means the life of grace is not reserved for dramatic spiritual heroes. It means that the baptized life may look, on some days, like simply refusing to let someone remain thirsty.

This is good news for tired people. This is good news for those who do not feel impressive. This is good news for those who are not sure they have enough strength for grand gestures, heroic sacrifice, or mountain-moving faith.

Jesus does not say, “Whoever changes the entire world by Tuesday will receive a reward.”

Thanks be to God. Jesus says even a cup of cold water matters. Even the small mercy matters. Even the unnoticed kindness matters. Even the quiet welcome matters. Not because it is impressive, but because it participates in the life of Christ.

This is also a word of judgment, though a gentle one.

Because if a cup of cold water matters, then we do not get to despise the small opportunities to love.

We do not get to say, “It is only hospitality.” We do not get to say, “It is only listening.” We do not get to say, “It is only showing up.” We do not get to say, “It is only a meal.” We do not get to say, “It is only a prayer.”

In the economy of grace, “only” is often where the kingdom begins.

Only a baby in Bethlehem. Only water in a stone jar. Only five loaves and two fish. Only a woman weeping at a tomb. Only bread. Only wine. Only a cup of cold water.

The Church is called to remember what the world forgets: God works through small things.

And so we return to the mountain.

Isaac asks, “Where is the lamb?”
Abraham says, “God will provide.”
The psalmist asks, “How long?”
Paul says, “The free gift of God is eternal life.”
Jesus says, “Give a cup of cold water.”

And somewhere in the middle of all of that is the life we are actually called to live.

Not a life of fear. Not a life of earning. Not a life of religious performance. Not a life where we pretend suffering is not real. But a life grounded in grace.

A life honest enough to lament. A life free enough to serve. A life baptized into Christ’s death and raised into Christ’s life. A life where love becomes visible in ordinary things.

So when the mountain is frightening, trust that God provides.

When the prayer is only “How long?” trust that lament is still prayer.

When sin offers wages, remember that grace gives a gift.

And when the world is thirsty, give the cup of cold water. It may not look like much. But in the kingdom of God, no mercy is wasted. No welcome is forgotten. No act of love disappears into the void.

The LORD will provide.

And sometimes, by grace, the provision will pass through our hands.

Amen.

Faithfulness in Small Places

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Where weariness has made us silent,
speak peace.
Where fear has made us hesitant,
plant courage.
Where apathy has dulled our joy,
kindle again the quiet fire of grace.

Lead us back to love,
back to prayer,
back to the work given for this day;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Paths of Prayer

How often do you think about your baptism?

For many of us, probably not very often.

Some of us were baptized as infants and have no memory of it. Some were baptized later in life and remember every detail. Some know the date. Some do not. Some can point to the font where it happened. Others have no idea.

And yet Paul tells us today that baptism is one of the most important things about us.

Not because it’s a memory. Or a ceremony. Not because it is a membership card. But because in baptism we are joined to Christ.

Paul says:

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

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That is startling. Most of us think of baptism as a beginning. Paul speaks of it as a death. The old self is buried. The old life is put away. The old powers that once ruled us no longer have the final word.

And just as Christ was raised from the dead, we are raised into a new life.

That is what baptism means.

It means that our deepest identity is not found in our accomplishments, our failures, our fears, our regrets, our careers, our families, or even our own opinions about ourselves.

Our deepest identity is this: we are loved and claimed by Christ.

That sounds beautiful, and it also sounds much easier than it actually is. Because the truth is that the old life has a way of reasserting itself.

The old anger. The old fear. The old selfishness. The old resentment. The old need to be right. The old habit of judging others more harshly than we judge ourselves.

Paul says the old self was crucified. In Christ, sin has been judged and dethroned. And yet we know, in lived experience, that old habits and old wounds do not always give up easily.

We know what this feels like. We make progress and then lose our temper. We forgive someone and then find ourselves replaying the hurt again. We pray for patience and then discover how impatient we still are.

We promise to trust God and then spend the next week worrying about everything.

The Christian life is full of these moments.

And that is why I think it is important to notice what Paul does not say.

Paul does not say that Christians never struggle. Paul does not say that Christians never fail. Paul does not say that Christians become perfect overnight.

Instead, he tells us to remember who we are.

“Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Remember your baptism. Remember to whom you belong. Remember the life into which you have been called. And when you fail—and you will—return.

Return to prayer. Return to worship. Return to grace. Return to the God who has never left.

Not to pretend everything is fine. Not to deny grief or anger or doubt. Not to bypass the truth about ourselves. But to return honestly, trusting that the grace of God is larger than our weakness.

That is not failure. That is discipleship.

And over time, by grace, it is also how we are healed and changed.

And that brings us to the Gospel.

Because Jesus is speaking to disciples who are about to discover that following him is not always easy.

He tells them that they will be misunderstood. He tells them that they will face opposition. He tells them that following him may even create division within families and communities.

These are difficult words.

Perhaps some of the most difficult in the Gospel.

And they have sometimes been used badly—used to justify harshness, estrangement, or the idea that causing pain is somehow proof of faithfulness. But that is not what Jesus is teaching here.

He is not teaching hostility. He is not teaching hatred. He is not teaching that Christians should go looking for conflict. He is simply telling the truth.

Following Christ is not always comfortable.

Sometimes faithfulness costs us something. Sometimes it means taking a different path than the one the world expects. Sometimes it means standing firm when it would be easier to compromise. Sometimes it means loving when anger would feel more satisfying. Sometimes it means forgiving when resentment would feel more natural.

Sometimes it means remaining open to relationships with people with whom we deeply disagree—though not at the expense of truth, safety, or healthy boundaries.

I think that last one may be especially important for us.

We live in a world that increasingly assumes that disagreement means separation.

If we disagree, we must become enemies. If we disagree, one of us must win. If we disagree, the relationship itself becomes disposable.

But Christians are called to something different.

The baptized life does not require us to agree about everything.

The Church has never agreed on everything. Paul and Barnabas disagreed sharply. Peter and Paul disagreed publicly. The saints argued, debated, and sometimes frustrated one another immensely. Yet they remained part of the same Body of Christ.

The baptized life is not about uniformity. It is about charity. It is about remembering whose we are while we disagree. It is about recognizing the image of God in another person even when we see the world differently. It is about speaking truthfully without cruelty. Listening without suspicion. Forgiving without keeping score. Loving without demanding that everyone become exactly like us.

That kind of life is not easy. It never has been.

That is why Jesus speaks about taking up the cross.

The cross is not merely suffering, and it is certainly not a command to accept abuse, excuse harm, or call mistreatment holy. The cross is the daily choice to follow Christ even when another path would be easier. The daily choice to love. The daily choice to forgive. The daily choice to remain faithful. The daily choice to begin again.

And perhaps that is where these readings meet.

Paul reminds us who we are. Jesus reminds us that living into that identity will not always be easy. But neither reading ends in despair. Both point us back to grace. Back to the God who called us. Back to the God who claims us. Back to the waters of baptism.

The waters of baptism are not merely where the Christian life begins. They are where the Christian life continually returns. Not because we are baptized again, but because we remember again whose we are. 

The Christian life is not the life of people who never stumble.

It is the life of people who know where to return when they do.

Again and again, we return to Christ. Again and again, we return to grace. Again and again, we remember who we are.

Dead to sin. Alive to God. Beloved in Christ.

Amen.

Faithfulness in Small Places

When the heart is tired,
return us to baptism.
When the mind is anxious,
return us to peace.
When love feels costly,
return us to the Christ who had compassion on the crowds,
because they were harassed and helpless,
like sheep without a shepherd.

Give to the Church wisdom without arrogance,
courage without cruelty,
conviction without contempt,
and faithfulness without the need to be seen.

Bless every quiet act of mercy today:
the patient word,
the honest apology,
the shared meal,
the work done without applause,
the prayer whispered between one task and the next.

Order our loves by grace,
that in ordinary time
we may bear ordinary witness
to extraordinary love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. -James 1:5, NRSV

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Paths of Prayer

There are noble ways to say that, of course. I could dress it up in the language of rest, discernment, silence, or holy hiddenness. Some of that would even be true.

But the plainer truth is this: the end of the school year took more out of me than I expected. After weeks of noise, responsibility, emotional heaviness, and the strange exhaustion that comes from finally stopping, I found myself caught somewhere between anxiety and apathy. I wanted to write. I also very much did not want to write. I wanted to be thoughtful, faithful, and present. I also wanted to sit very still and not be perceived by anyone for several business days.

So I stopped.

And now, by grace, I am trying to begin again.

Today’s Gospel is Matthew 9:35–10:8. Jesus goes among the cities and villages, teaching, proclaiming, and healing. Then Jesus sees the crowds and has compassion for them, “because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36, NRSV).

That phrase has stayed with me: harassed and helpless.

It is easy to read that as a description of other people. The crowds. The needy. The spiritually confused. The people out there who need ministry.

But sometimes the harassed and helpless one is the minister. Sometimes it is the teacher. Sometimes it is the parent, the spouse, the priest, the writer, the person who is supposedly holding things together while quietly coming apart at the edges.

And Jesus does not look upon such people with disappointment.

Jesus has compassion.

That matters.

Before there is mission, there is compassion. Before the disciples are sent, the crowds are seen. Before anyone is told to go, heal, cleanse, raise, cast out, or proclaim, Jesus first looks upon wounded humanity with mercy.

The Church forgets this at times. We can speak of mission as if it were mainly a matter of energy, organization, charisma, or willpower. We can confuse faithfulness with productivity. We can baptize overwork and call it sacrifice. We can become so enamored with the harvest that we forget the laborers are also beloved.

But the Gospel does not begin with panic.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Matthew 9:37, NRSV). That is true. There is always more need than strength. Always more grief than hands. Always more hunger than bread. Always more work than workers.

Yet Jesus does not say, “Try harder.”

Jesus says to pray.

That is the first movement of mission: not frantic usefulness, but prayerful dependence. The harvest belongs to God. The field belongs to God. The laborers belong to God too.

This is strangely comforting to me as I return to writing. I do not need to come back with a grand manifesto. I do not need to explain every absence, redeem every lost week, or prove that I have been sufficiently productive in the silence.

I can simply return.

I can return because compassion comes before commission.

I can return because grace is not offended by exhaustion.

I can return because the Gospel is not entrusted only to the impressive, the energetic, or the emotionally well-regulated. It is entrusted to ordinary disciples who are summoned, named, and sent.

In Matthew 10, Jesus sends the twelve with this proclamation: “The kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 10:7, NRSV).

That is enough for today.

The kingdom has come near. Near to the crowds. Near to the sick. Near to the anxious. Near to the apathetic. Near to the exhausted teacher in summer recovery. Near to the priest who is trying to find words again. Near to the writer staring at a blank page, wondering whether momentum can be resurrected after a long silence.

The kingdom has come near, and that means return is possible.

So this is my small return to the harvest. Not heroic. Not polished. Not triumphant. Just a few loaves, a few words, and the hope that grace can make use of them.

Freely we have received.

Freely, by the mercy of God, we begin again.

Faithfulness in Small Places

Paths of Prayer

This is the manuscript itself and does not have my asides and additions while preaching.

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O Holy Spirit, by whose breath, life rises vibrant out of death; come to create, renew, inspire; come kindle in our hearts your fire. Amen.

Jesus gives us a group project, then ghosts us.

At least, that is how it can sound at first. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” There’s the assignment: love, obey, bear witness, continue the way of Jesus in the world. And then Jesus talks about going away.

But we aren’t being abandoned. Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and the Father will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.”

So, in actuality, Jesus gives us a group project and Holy Ghosts us.

Not by disappearing, but by giving the Holy Spirit—the Advocate, the One called alongside us—so that the Church, the people of God, is not left alone to love, suffer, witness, forgive, and hope by human strength alone.

I’d like to draw our attention briefly to two words used here in the text. “Another Advocate.” In Greek, the phrase is, allon parakleton. Now my Greek may be a bit rusty (and limited to that which is only used in fraternities), but allon usually carries the sense of “another of the same kind.” Greek words are a bit slippery, but the point is clear: Jesus is not promising a lesser substitute.

And parakleton does mean advocate, but not in the first sense that may come to mind for us: courtroom proceedings, legal defense, someone arguing a case before a judge. This use of the word carries the sense of one called alongside.

This is not Jesus saying, “I am leaving, but I will send someone sort of similar to help you manage.” No. The Holy Spirit is distinct from the Son, yet one with the Son and the Father in divine life, love, will, and mission. While writing the draft for this, Grammarly attempted to change my “another of the same kind” to “like”. Now, like is not entirely wrong, but it is far too small. The Spirit is not merely like Christ from a distance. The Spirit continues the presence and work of Christ in and among the Church, the people of God.

And this really matters, because the command Jesus gives us sounds deceptively simple.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

Well, this should be easy.

Love Jesus. Love neighbor. Forgive enemies. Bear witness. Tell the truth. Care for the vulnerable. Welcome the stranger. Be patient. Be merciful. Do not return evil for evil. Keep walking in the way of Christ.

Easy enough—until we actually have to do it.

We know how quickly love becomes selective; we know how easily mercy becomes something we admire in theory but resent in practice. We know how often forgiveness sounds holy until there is actually someone to forgive. We know how often welcome sounds beautiful until the stranger becomes inconvenient. And we know how quickly patience evaporates when we are tired, stressed, ignored, wounded, or afraid.

And the Church knows this, too; it has always known this. We can speak beautifully about love and still struggle to love the person directly in front of us. We can defend truth in ways that become cruel. We can mistake being right for being faithful. We can confuse witness with winning, holiness with superiority. We can turn the commands of Christ into a measuring stick for everyone else while quietly excusing ourselves.

So when Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” we should not hear that as a casual religious slogan: we should hear it as something that exposes us.

Because really, the commandment is simple, but simple does not mean easy.

And this is why the Advocate—allon parakleton—is sent to us.

Jesus doesn’t give the Church a commandment and then leave that commandment sitting on the desk like an impossible assignment, knowing we can’t complete it. Jesus doesn’t say, “love as I have loved you,” and then leave the disciples to figure it out by memory, nostalgia, or institutional competence.

The Advocate comes alongside.

Being called alongside doesn’t mean doing the work for us, removing all the responsibility, or pretending the assignment doesn’t matter.

Think, for a moment, of a good paraprofessional in a school. A paraprofessional doesn’t replace the teacher. A paraprofessional doesn’t excuse the student from learning. A good paraprofessional comes alongside: helping, guiding, reminding, steadying, sometimes correcting, sometimes encouraging, so that the student can remain connected to the work they have been given.

By no means is this a perfect image for the Holy Spirit. No image is, but it does open a window.

The Advocate does not excuse us from love, but makes love possible.

The Holy Spirit comes alongside the people of God so that we may remain connected to the work we have been given: to love Christ, to keep the commandments, to bear witness, to forgive, to hope, to live in the way Christ showed us.

And the Spirit is more than just a private comforter. The Spirit isn’t there to make us feel religiously secure. The Spirit forms a people who can live differently in this world.

First Peter says, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

There is a kind of advocacy there too. A defense. An accounting. A witness. But notice the shape of it: “with gentleness and reverence.”

Not with arrogance. Not with cruelty. Not with contempt. Not with the desperate need to win every argument.

The Advocate does not make the Church loud and mean. The Advocate makes the Church truthful, steady, gentle, and brave.

That is the kind of witness the world needs from the people of God. Not a Church that can merely shout religious answers, but a Church that can embody hope. Not a Church that uses truth as a weapon, but a Church that speaks truth in love. Not a Church that panics in suffering, but a Church that can endure suffering without surrendering gentleness.

And that is only possible because we are not left alone.

In Acts, Paul stands in Athens and speaks to people who are searching, worshiping, wondering, reaching toward something they don’t know. And Paul says that God “is not far from each one of us.” That is a remarkable claim.

God is not far.

The divine life is not locked away in heaven. The living God is not contained by temples made with human hands. The Creator of heaven and earth is nearer than the Athenians realize.

And in John’s Gospel, Jesus brings that nearness even closer: “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.”

That is the heart of this passage.

“I will not leave you orphaned.”

Jesus knows the disciples are afraid. Jesus knows they do not fully understand. Jesus knows that love will be costly, witness will be dangerous, forgiveness will be difficult, and hope will sometimes feel foolish.

So Jesus promises the Advocate.

The promise is not that nothing hard will happen. The promise is not that the Church will always understand clearly. The promise is not that discipleship will be painless.

The promise is presence.

The Psalm gives us that same kind of testimony. Psalm 66 does not say, “Nothing difficult ever happened to us.” It speaks of testing. It speaks of burdens. It speaks of fire and water. And yet it also says, “You have brought us out into a place of refreshment.”

That is the witness of the people of God.

Not that we are never afraid. Not that we never fail. Not that the way is never hard.

But that we are not abandoned. We are brought through. The Advocate is the presence of God with us: before us and behind us, beneath us and above us, beside us and within us; in quiet and in danger, in friend and stranger.

Through fire and water. Through failure and repentance. Through grief and hope. Through the hard work of forgiveness. Through the ordinary, daily labor of love.

So yes, Jesus gives us a group project.

The Christian life isn’t a solo assignment. We are baptized into a body—Christ’s body. We are made members of Christ’s Church. We are given one another: sometimes as a gift, sometimes as an irritant, often both. We are commanded to love not only in theory, not only in sentiment, not only when it is easy, but in the actual life we share.

And then Jesus Holy Ghosts us.

The Holy Spirit comes alongside the Church so that the life of Christ may continue in us and among us.

So when love feels impossible, the Advocate is alongside us.

When forgiveness feels too costly, the Advocate is alongside us. When witness requires gentleness and reverence, the Advocate is alongside us. When suffering threatens to make us bitter, the Advocate is alongside us. When the Church forgets its own calling, the Advocate is alongside us, reminding us of the way of Jesus.

The commandment is love. The gift is the Advocate. The promise is presence.

Jesus does not leave us orphaned. Jesus does not leave us with an impossible assignment and an empty room. The Father gives another Advocate to be with us forever.

And by the Spirit, the presence and work of Christ continue in the Church, the people of God, until love becomes more than an assignment…

Love becomes our life.

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Faithfulness in Small Places

Paths of Prayer

It has been a quieter season here than I expected.

Many of you know at least some of what has been going on in my life, and I am deeply grateful for the patience, encouragement, prayers, and kindness you have offered along the way. I have not disappeared. I have simply been moving through a full season—sometimes faithfully, sometimes tiredly, sometimes with more silence than words.

But I am glad to share this:

The second Reverend Thorne novel is officially underway.

After Faithfulness in Small Places, I knew Jonah’s story was not finished. St. Jude’s still has more life in it. Providence still has more people to reveal. Jonah still has more questions to ask, more awkward conversations to survive, more coffee to drink, and more grace to stumble into.

This second novel begins almost immediately after the first. Pentecost has come and gone. The church is still small. The work is still fragile. A Celebration of New Ministry is approaching, and Jonah is trying to understand what it means to be seen, named, and received as the priest of a place he still fears he may not be able to save.

This book is beginning to take shape around vocation, exhaustion, belonging, imposter syndrome, ordinary pastoral care, and the strange ways grace keeps interrupting people who are not sure they are ready for it.

In other words, Jonah is still Jonah.

I do not want to say too much yet, but I thought I would share a small glimpse from the opening movement of the new book.

From the second Reverend Thorne novel

I spent most of the morning polishing silver.

It felt like the sort of thing a priest should do when he didn’t know what else to do. The chalice sat on the table in the parish hall, catching little fragments of light from the window above the sink. Beside it were the paten, the cruets, and the small silver lavabo bowl I had found tucked behind a stack of mismatched altar linens. I didn’t even know the last time anyone had polished it properly. Judging by the dark streaks along the rim, neither did anyone else.

I worked the cloth in slow circles. Press. Turn. Breathe. Press. Turn. Breathe. It was almost a prayer, like something the Benedictines would do.

The Celebration of New Ministry was coming whether I felt ready for it or not. The bishop would stand at our little altar. People might come from the diocese, maybe from town. My parents would sit somewhere in the pews, probably in the front row. My mother would probably start crying in the opening hymn, and my father would look quietly overwhelmed but determined to be useful if anyone needed something carried.

And somewhere in all of that, I would be expected to look like the person everyone kept insisting I was.

Priest.

Vicar.

Pastor.

Father Jonah.

I rubbed at a stubborn spot near the base of the chalice until my thumb began to ache.

“There,” I muttered.

It still looked tarnished. I leaned back in the chair and stared at it for a while. That seemed familiar.

A knock sounded from the church doors. Not loud. Not urgent. Just two careful taps.

I froze, polishing cloth still wrapped around my fingers.

For a moment, I wondered if I had imagined it—the wood settling from the heat. Maybe the wind pressed against the doors just enough to make them complain.

Then it came again. Two taps. A pause. One more.

I stood slowly, setting the chalice down with more care than was necessary.

“Coming,” I called, though I doubt they could hear me.

I stepped through the parish hall, past the folding tables and the bulletin board still advertising the Pentecost feast with Caleb’s bright little flyers, and crossed into the nave. The church was dim, except for the angled light coming through the plain windows. Dust drifted lazily through it as if it had nowhere in particular to be.

When I opened the door, a boy stood on the top step. Not a child exactly, but not fully grown either.

One of those summer teenagers caught somewhere between looking too young to be left alone and too old to admit they needed anything. He had his hands buried deep in the pockets of a faded hoodie, despite the heat, and his hair fell over his eyes in uneven strands.

I recognized him. Not well, but enough. He had been at the school after Elias died. One of the ones who hovered near the edges. One of the ones who didn’t cry where anyone could see.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I replied.

For a second, neither of us moved. He glanced past me into the church, then down at his shoes.

“I didn’t know if you’d be here.”

“I’m here,” I said.

He nodded, still not looking directly at me.

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

That line feels like the heart of this next part of Jonah’s story.

A small church. A tired priest. A knock at the door. Someone who does not know where else to go.

That, I think, is where much of the Gospel lives—not always in grand moments, not always in full sanctuaries, not always in certainty, but in the quiet faithfulness of being there when someone knocks.

I am grateful to be walking with Jonah again.

And I am grateful that so many of you have been willing to walk with him, too.

More soon.

Peace,

Chris

Faithfulness in Small Places

Paths of Prayer

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