The king of Egypt spoke to two Hebrew midwives named Shiphrah and Puah: “When you are helping the Hebrew women give birth and you see the baby being born, if it’s a boy, kill him. But if it’s a girl, you can let her live.” Now the two midwives respected God so they didn’t obey the Egyptian king’s order. Instead, they let the baby boys live. (Exodus 1:15-17)

You can be forgiven if the names Shiphrah and Puah don’t mean all that much to you. They aren’t among the Bible characters most often taught to us, whether as adults or children. But for as much as we know about Pharaoh—I think we all have an image of a guy with a blue and white headdress on right now—there’s a reason he is not named beyond his title. Shiphrah and Puah are. They are important; we are given their names.

Here’s the thing though, both Pharaoh and the midwives acted out of fear—but it was two different kinds of fear and two different places it was directed towards. Pharaoh was afraid of the Hebrew people. Whether it was because of willful ignorance or just general loss of institutional knowledge, he seems to be unaware it was a Hebrew, Joseph, that saved his people’s skin. He was afraid they’d become too numerous and too powerful. He was scared these immigrant people would take everything he valued from him: land, power, status, way of life.

Representing what St. Paul calls the “Principalities and Powers” people of faith struggle against, Pharaoh was afraid, and it led him to do reprehensible acts of violence and oppression—enslavement and infanticide of all Hebrew males. Whenever the Powers and Principalities feel threatened, they lash out to try and keep people in line. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 quips, there is nothing new under the sun.

Pharaoh calls Shiphrah and Puah, two Hebrew midwives, to his court so he can coerce them into his hair-brained scheme. Maybe he thinks the empiric pageantry would scare them into submission. Maybe he thinks they’d be intimidated by his throne. Maybe he thinks they would be turncoats against their own people. Who knows what he was thinking—fear makes you do otherwise crazy things. He gives the command, saying, “When you are helping the Hebrew women give birth and you see the baby being born, if it’s a boy, kill him. But if it’s a girl, you can let her live.” (Ex. 1:16) Then he shoes them away expecting them to fear his retribution if they don’t comply.

But they don’t. Their fear is placed somewhere else. Our translation said Shiphrah and Puah “respected” God, but I don’t think that’s evocative enough. Turn to the King James, New Revised, or New International Versions and you’ll find they “fear” God. Whole different connotation

This is a different kind of fear, though. It’s not fear like exorcism movies give me the willies and make me have nightmares for a week. It’s not fear like how you used to, or are right now, lie awake the night before a test because you aren’t sure you’re going to get a good enough grade. It’s not even fear like how you realize while you’re walking through the door it’s your anniversary and you didn’t get your partner anything to celebrate.

The fear of Shiphrah and Puah is the fear that comes from faith in God. It’s awe and reverence for the one who created the universe and holds it together still. It is holy fear—recognition of one’s place—where God is God, and we are not. And it comes from being and staying in relationship with God. It forms them into people who are unwilling to be transformed by the Powers and Principalities. It’s an illustration of Proverbs 9:10, The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord… They are wise in that they know who they are and whose they are.

Shiphrah and Puah been given the gift of midwifery—they literally help bring life into this world. And they’re good at it too—why else would Pharaoh have called these two in if they weren’t in demand for their services? But then he asks them to go against that gift and use it instead as a tool of oppression. It makes absolute sense in theory that they would refuse but remember—the pressure of the empire to conform is great. It’s true even for the Church.

I hold great admiration for the Confessing Church in Germany. I have their Barmen Declaration printed and hung in my office. The Confessing Church were the churches and leaders who banded together to oppose the Nazis’ efforts to coalesce all Protestant churches into one pro-Nazi state Church.

But the fact that they had to separate themselves means there were many who gave in to the fear-based racism and fascism of the wider culture surrounding them. There were those who went a long to get along with the Powers and Principalities. The Confessing Church stood against them, though they did not go far enough to denounce and help suffering Jews—they admitted as much after it the war was over.

Shiphrah and Puah did not give in—instead, they refused to abide by Pharaoh’s command and law, and the rest is history.

They lived out Paul’s exhortation to the Romans. So, brothers and sisters, because of God’s mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God. This is your appropriate priestly service. Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature. (Rom. 12:1-2)

Shiphrah and Puah are an example of how to be a living sacrifice in the world, but not of the world—giving up yourself so others might find life in the here and now. They lived out God’s wisdom in that they forsook themselves for the good of others. And they did it because of their faith, their fear full of awe and reverence of our God.

It would do us well to remember their names and imitate their faith.

What I have come to know is the depths of her faith and how it informed her life like a throughline. When all the world would pressure her into thinking human thoughts, she consistently thought God’s thoughts. Here’s an example of what I mean.

Early in her career as a singer, she spent 7 years doing a TV show with Porter Wagoner. He gave Dolly her big break and it was big. They cut records, made hits, and won awards together. But, as all things do, the partnership had run its course and eventually Dolly was ready to move on, get out of Porter’s shadow, and strike out on her own. She even said God told her to leave the partnership.

Not surprisingly, Porter didn’t want Dolly to leave. He’d experienced success like never before with her, why should that stop. Plus, a contract was on his side. No was the easy answer for him. But she persisted. Dolly went home that night and penned a song about her feelings toward Porter and their situation. She wrote, “If I should stay/ Well I would only be in your way/ And so I’ll go, and yet I know/ I’ll think of you each step of the way/ And I will always love you.” She took the song into Porter, and he begrudgingly agreed to let her go if he could produce that song.

But the peace didn’t last for long. Porter sued Dolly for breach of contract. He argued he was entitled money for damages, royalties, and such. He was trying to cash in on Dolly’s further meteoric rise. He didn’t really have a case, but Dolly didn’t want a prolonged public legal battle. She settled and gave him around a million dollars, more like 7 million today adjusted for inflation. Later she said she gave him the first million she made. I doubt there was much of a relationship left, especially after he continued to bad mouth her to anyone who would listen.

That was 1979, but by 1981 Porter was basically penniless. He had been dropped by his own label, and no one paid him any attention, except Dolly. She found out what happened to Porter, bought the entire label herself, and then gave it to Porter so he and his family could have financial independence and dignity. She saved him, the guy who tried to refuse to let her go, who sued her. She loved him even, or especially, when he did not deserve it, and it changed everything. She was holding his hand when he died in 2007.

Later, when asked why she treated Porter with such kindness. It didn’t and doesn’t compute because the world runs on revenge and grudges. When someone does you wrong, you’re expected to return the same. It’s a dog-eat-dog world where the means are only justified by the ends, except for Dolly. She simply said, “forgiveness is all there is.” She lived a life with grace as her polar star. God bless her for many reasons, but especially because she understood and lived what Jesus taught his disciples in our reading today: To bear a cross, to follow the way of Christ, is to deny yourself for others’ needs.

Our story today follows directly after last week’s where Jesus affirmed and lauded Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, God’s Son. He said “yes” to the dress, the dress being that he is the one who would save and rescue God’s people. Today, he began to teach his closest followers what that would look like: From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and legal experts, and that he had to be killed and raised on the third day. (Matt. 16:21)

The two didn’t compute. Messiahs don’t suffer and die; they win. They win. They save and not in a spiritual mumbo jumbo type of salvation. They kick butt and take names. The Messiah was supposed to violently kick out the Romans and be the King the people had always dreamed of, ruling with goodness and righteousness like King David only better. You can’t do that if you suffer and die. As Tom Long says, “The idea of a crucified Messiah violates religious expectation and defies reason.^[1]”

And Peter takes it upon himself to correct Jesus. I’ve done some dumb things in my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever tried to correct God. Argue? Yes. Complain? Definitely. Succumb? You betchya. Correct? No. But Peter does, grabbing his arm and basically shouting at him, “No, that can’t happen!” Oh how quickly they fall—last week Peter got the gold star for his good confession and this week he’s propping up satanic ways. Jesus shouts back, “Fall in line, Devil! That’s human drivel, not God’s wisdom!”

Human wisdom is self-actualization. It’s not caring about the implications of your actions. It’s winning at all costs. It’s the ends justify the means. It’s doing out vengeance because it makes you feel good at the moment. It’s navel-gazing, a heart turned in on itself so even the good things like love serve its own needs. It’s trying to stop Jesus from doing what he was sent to do.

God’s wisdom is choosing an unremarkable old man and his barren wife to be the progenitors of his people. It’s choosing a murderer who can’t talk too good to be the one to lead them out of slavery. It’s giving the people the King they want even though God knows it’s only going to end in calamity. It’s God sending the prophet to anoint the youngest son who smells like he’s been rolling in sheep crap. It’s sending his people away when they forget that part of being his people is to take care of the last, least, lost, and little. It’s calling a crazy man out into the wilderness to preach a message of “change or else!” And it’s choosing to become incarnate, in the flesh like us. It’s forsaking himself to save us from ourselves and the powers that try to pull us under.

The Cross, Jesus’ death and resurrection, is God’s wisdom.

Jesus is God’s Messiah through and through, it’s just the strength he embodies is to liberate his people. He denies himself for the sake of others. But to deny himself doesn’t mean self-hate or self-immolation. He doesn’t go the Cross for no reason. Only giving things up will only make you empty. He is going there to serve a bigger purpose, one that our Jeremiah reading spells out centuries before it came to pass: I will rescue you from the hand of the wicked;/ I will redeem you from the grasp of the violent. (Jer. 15:21)

The Cross is God’s answer to the wickedness and violence of Sin and Death, the corrupting agents of Satan that thwart human flourishing, because it’s in the Cross Jesus takes them on himself and then leaves them in the tomb on the third day. Jesus won’t be swayed by human wisdom, in fact he rebukes it like the demon it is, because it is only through God’s wisdom of self-sacrifice and love that you would be saved to forgiveness and freedom.

And this is the life and way Jesus invites and calls his followers into. All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me will find them. (Matt. 16:24-25) The curious thing is that living only for yourself, caring only about winning, finding meaning only in success, allowing that heart to stay inwardly curved in, only leads to death.

Again, Tom Long, “It is the mystery of the gospel that what appears to crush everything one hopes to be as a human being—bearing the cross of service and suffering—is in fact the only way for a human being to be fully alive.^[2]” It’s giving up YOUR agenda and letting go of YOUR dreams because God has already enfolded you into his story.

The call is to self-sacrifice, to give up FOR others.

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It is not worrying about results, they will be what they will be but focusing on the process. We do what we do because it is right and good and true, not because they are a “winning” strategy. And we can do it because we have that picture of the third day—we know our labor is ultimately not in vain, even if it looks like it.

That’s what Dolly got more than Peter, at least at this moment in his walk of faith. The way of Jesus isn’t about winning but giving yourself away so others would live. Dolly had every reason to pay Porter back for his evil actions (Rom. 12:17), but she didn’t; she chose forgiveness. She chose love. She chose sacrifice so he could have a future he didn’t deserve.

“Forgiveness is all there is” doesn’t sound much like wisdom to a people completely absorbed with itself, but it does sound a heck of a whole like another piece of God’s wisdom: take up your cross and follow me.

And we do it like Dolly because we know what she knew deep in her bones: we love and forgive not to earn God’s love, but because God has already loved and forgiven us.

^[1] Tom Long, WBC: Matthew, p. 189

^[2] Ibid., 191.

There are many times where I feel like I am quite in over my head. Whether it’s the fatherly responsibilities I’ve inherited, the organizations I’ve agreed to help lead, or just the relentless pressure to perform, the feeling of not quite measuring up always seems to be lurking.

On my worst days I diagnose myself with imposter syndrome, a real psychological phenomenon where you are always waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop and people to find out you are a fraud. Surely they will find out I’m just making it up as I go, right?

On my best days I like to think of it as a healthy sense of humility. Jesus talks about the need to humble yourself and Paul says we shouldn’t think too highly of ourselves, so I’m just following my faith, right? At one time I even had the following graphic displayed in my office as much a reminder to me as to anyone else:

But if I’m honest, often my heathy sense of humility is exposed to be just a veneer behind which a healthy sense of pride is hiding. It usually comes out as thoughts like, “I may not be perfect or the best or the greatest, but at least I’m not as bad as them.”

There are people with whom we feel we compare favorably and when they get good news, achieve something, or receive acclaim, it splashes cold water on our sense of self.

Here are some phrases I’ve thought over the years:

“She likes who!?!” Of course, I would have rather her liked me.

“He got accepted to where!?!” Of course, I thought he shouldn’t have gone anywhere.

“They hired that guy!?!” Of course, I applied so they should have hired ME.

Relationships, schools, jobs. These and more all serve as the barometer for how we are doing in life. When someone who we think we are better than starts to receive more success or attention than us, it can leave you feeling distraught, frustrated, and jaded.

Something fishy might be going on. Aren’t I a better guy, a smarter student, a more qualified candidate?

This way of thinking even leaks its way into the Church. It’s what Paul was trying to guard against when he told the Romans not to think too highly of themselves. To think too highly of yourself means you think you are holier, are closer to God, or are just a better person.

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You can’t tell me you haven’t thought you were a “better Christian” than someone else.

We have a tendency to do that! We might not look at ourselves highly, but we definitely look down on other people we perceive as “less than:” they smell, they dress wrong, they raise their hands in worship, they ad lib sermons too much, they don’t give enough, they are too loud, they vote the wrong way, they comment on Facebook too much, they write their prayers, they cheer for the Cardinals or Patriots or Warriors, they shop at Walmart, or whatever.

Don’t be so humble, I’m not that great, but at least I’m not as bad as them.

This isn’t to say everything should be flattened, differences eliminated, and morals tossed out the window. Soon Paul will talk about preferred ways of acting and behaving as we live together in faith. There is evil and there is good. There are better ways to behave, ways that are indeed more faithful: loving lavishly, giving generously, and pardoning prodigiously.

But Paul begins by reminding us of where we begin: not with our own faults or merits. Our new life with God, the true life lived fully, is a gift from the one that rescued us: God has measured out a portion of faith to each one of you. Another way I’ve heard it put is: the ground is level at the foot of the Cross.

We can’t be haughty because the life and faith we have are not things we’ve earned, skills we’ve honed, or awards we’ve won. They are gifts of the God who lavishly bestows—not because we’ve earned them, but because God is gracious and loves every last one of us. And if they are gifts, then there is no room for either pride or comparison—only the humility that comes from knowing we all need God gives.

I have this memory seared into my brain from when I was ten years old. I’m out on an old rickety fishing boat with an older man. I can remember there was not a cloud in the sky on that warm spring day. We weren’t catching a single thing except sunburn, which was worse for him because he was bald. But fishing wasn’t really the reason why we were there. Fishing was pretense for talking about Jesus and faith, for that old man’s name was Ted Lyons and he was new my baptism mentor.

It was his job to walk with and guide me as I learned about the stories of our faith, what it means to trust in Jesus, how we find out what kind of body part we are in the church, and what stewardship means (among other things.) He was at each weekly class and then took me on adventures, like fishing, in between, trying to help what I learned a chance to sink in deep. It wasn’t his job to give me the answers to all my questions; he didn’t pretend to try.

Instead, he listened. He asked me questions. He offered me how he read the Bible and prayed and then prayed with me. He allowed me space so by the end of the class he was standing behind me as I made that good confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And then, more than 15 years later, he was the first one to give me a hug after I was ordained to be a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not my family, not my regional minister, Ted—my baptism mentor.

Then Jesus replied, “Happy are you, Simon son of Jonah, because no human has shown this to you. Rather my Father who is in heaven has shown you. (Matt. 16:17)

Peter has been walking with, sitting at the feet of, casting demons out in the name of, witnessing the miracles of, and even participating in the miracles of Jesus for awhile now. Called out of his boat to follow the intrepid traveling teacher and healer, Peter has had a front-stage pass to all of Jesus’ exploits. It has all led to this pivotal moment, both in the story as Matthew presents it and in Peter’s life. Things will never be the same for him after what happens.

It’s a loaded question even now. “Who do people say that I am?” What are people saying about me? What do they think of me? Does she like me like me? Even the most well-grounded and stable people still bristle at having external evaluations—performance review time is never something someone looks forward to. But Jesus increases the stakes by where he asks the question. The disciples had to have felt the pressure of expectation and history when mulling over their options.

They answer honestly, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.” (Matt. 16:14) They trot out a list of potential hits, people who were important, close to, working in the world for, and speaking on behalf of God. Important? Yes. New? No. He’s just another in a long line of God ordained persons who stir things up but then exit stage left. They’ve fit Jesus into their preconceived notions of the world, forcing him into the box of their worldview. He’s not something new but just a continuation of what’s come before.

And maybe the disciples felt good about that response. They’d reported the scuttlebutt— “People think you’re important Jesus. A kingdom of heaven guy like your cousin. A leader like Elijah. Long-suffering like Jeremiah. One of God’s chosen speakers like those prophets!” That’s a good review. To be mentioned in the same sentence as beloved leaders of old, I’d take that every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

But that was all just a pretense. A warm-up for the real question. Jesus says, “What about you? What do you think? Who do you say that I am?” That’s when it gets real, when it moves from the general to the specific, when the question isn’t about what love is but “Do you love me?” The directness is the challenge.

I imagine there was silence for a beat. They’d all spoken in unison those things others were saying, but when it was time to get down to brass tacks about their convictions, you could feel the avoidance hanging in the air. And then Peter steps up to the plate after ruminating on their shared history and says what’s true, what he feels in his heart. Not just Peter’s life, but the whole of Matthew has been building to this point: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter says more than he probably knows:

Jesus is the one who would save and rescue a world in peril, that ideal king of Israel who would right all wrongs and bring peace, wisdom, righteousness, and prosperity. He’s closer to God than we could imagine, mirroring and embodying God’s nature here and now for us to see and experience the God who gives life to creatures, starts the stars in their orbit, makes the rains fall on the just and unjust, knows the sparrow and counts our hairs, and in whose image we find our source.^[1]

10 out of 10. Gold star. He wrecked the curve. That is who Jesus was and is and will forever be. I like to imagine a smile slowly spreading across Jesus’ face as Peter gave his good confession AND I like to imagine Peter noticed it too. Who doesn’t like to see when their teacher and leader is proud of them?

However, Jesus knows this isn’t a moment to pat Peter on the back, but to celebrate God’s self-giving nature. God is the one who condescends, who lowers himself to us to speak faith into us. In Christ, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, emptying and humbling herself to take our form. Peter’s able to make this confession because of God’s enabling him to do so. Faith does not originate with us but with the one in whom we believe and in whom we trust. Then Jesus replied, “Happy are you, Simon son of Jonah, because no human has shown this to you. Rather my Father who is in heaven has shown you. (Matt. 16:17)

This isn’t to say that God gave Peter some divine download, a moment of special revelation, or a direct hotline to God’s consciousness. No, God spoke faith into Peter through people and the Word. It just was that for Peter that was one and the same. Every time Peter heard Jesus teach, saw him heal, experienced his grace was an instance Jesus’ Father who is in heaven showing the truth of Christ’s identity to him.

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The same is true of you and me too—our faith is not our own; we have it because of the people who have come before us who taught, showed, and made real the love of Christ. We are blessed not because a human has shown this to us, but because God has used people to show us. As Paul says in 1^st Corinthians, “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit,” it’s just that the Holy Spirit has always used people to carry that message into the world. We s

…you are fellow citizens with God’s people, and you belong to God’s household. As God’s household, you are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. The whole building is joined together in him, and it grows up into a temple that is dedicated to the Lord. (Eph. 2:19-21) From Peter, to Stephen, to Paul, to Phoebe, to Junia all the way down through the generations to people like my baptism mentor Ted, the faith of our household has only ever been passed by God’s people sharing the gift of faith with those who come after them.

God sets people in our path to show us Jesus. I wonder who might God be wanting you to show Jesus to? I wonder who did that for you?

Then Jesus replied, “Happy are you, Simon son of Jonah, because no human has shown this to you. Rather my Father who is in heaven has shown you. (Matt. 16:17)

^[1] Tom Long, WBC: Matthew

My brother and I didn’t get along all that well when we were growing up. Fights, teasing, yelling, comparing, tricking, we did it all to each other. We didn’t become friends until after he left the house at 18. But the seeds of friendship and love were there along the way. Now that I’ve grown up, I’m able to step back and see we really did love each other. There’s a story I come back to that reminds me of that fact.

It was the summer after 3rd grade. That year somehow someway I was the top fundraiser for my school and that meant I won a brand new 21-speed bike. It was fast. It was teal, and this was the 90s so teal was great. I loved that bike. Well, every summer we went camping with some family friends. They had girls the same age as me and my brother. And you can bet I convinced my parents to let us bring our bikes on that year’s weekend trip.

So, the four of us kids went on a bike ride that Saturday morning. It was long and arduous, or at least it felt that way at the time. We biked up this great big hill and then stopped to decide what to do. Do we keep going or turn back? We were split two vs. two with me and my brother on opposite sides of course; I was on team turnback and decided I wasn’t going to wait for the group decision. I headed down the hill and back to camp. I forgot, though, that what made the hill so difficult was that we had to stop biking and haul our bikes over a downed tree in the middle of the path.

I hit that log at full speed. My face smashed into the crossbar. I flipped my bike. I cracked my helmet. My brother and friends found me curled into a ball with my hands holding my mangled mouth. Somehow, they got me back to the campsite and my parents. After cleaning me up they told me I’d not so much as chipped my bottom teeth as I’d broken them in half. I was sentenced to a weekend full of drinking Slimfast through a straw because the dentist wasn’t open till Monday.

Meanwhile, when they were trying to take care of me and figure out what to do, my mom caught my brother trying to sneak away on his bike.

“Kirk, what’re you doing?”

“I’m going to look for the other half of Will’s teeth!”

That story has always stuck with me because, to me, the seeds of our love for each other were always there—even if the fights and screaming matches and overall general destruction two brothers stirred up covered it up just a little bit.

If there are any seeds of love in this morning’s story from Genesis, they would be dried up and shriveled—the seeds forgotten and never sold from last season. There seems to be no love at all except for the effusive, over-the-top, oppressive love of Jacob for Joseph.

We’re now in the fourth generation of promise. First, it was Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob, and now it seems it will be Joseph. At some point the promises and love of God are supposed to expand beyond just one singular person—God chose this family to be the avenue through which the whole world would be blessed, but here at the outset of what is like a little Joseph novella, it seems it’s going to have to wait at least another generation. Jacob didn’t learn from the way his mom and dad played favorites with him and his brother Esau.

Jacob is singularly focused on his second-to-last son, Joseph. Joseph was Jacob’s first son with Rachel—his one true love. It had taken them years to get pregnant, so, understandably, Jacob felt a bit warmer toward Joseph. And then Rachel died in childbirth with Benjamin, the last son of Jacob, so it’s even more understandable when those feelings of warmth directed at Joseph were intensified. But it came out in unhealthy ways—mainly public displays of affection that destroyed any chance of a relationship between his sons.

Yes, I’m talking about Jacob giving Joseph the “Amazing, Technicolor, Dream Coat.” As much as I loved that musical, the design and fashion of the coat is less about its pzazz and more about the fact that the coat is utterly ridiculous!

The coat has no use for a family of shepherds. It would be like giving someone a three-piece suit and then telling him to go feed the pigs or mow the lawn or pressure wash the house—it doesn’t fit. And it would be one thing if each of the sons got a coat, but it was just Joseph. Jacob singled him out for love and devotion over and against all the other sons.

It’s a curious case of the sins of the father echoing down to the next generation.

And then there’s Joseph himself. He’s not exactly the picture of a perfect sibling. The first thing we’re told about him is he’s a tattle tale. Now, every kid is a tattle in some regard—their moral compass skews black and white and sometimes they fold when it’s better to hold for the sake of the relationship.

But Joseph isn’t a toddler. He isn’t even an elementary school kid. He’s 17. He SHOULD know better. Instead, he spills the beans on his half-brothers back to Dad like some type of informant.

Joseph told their father unflattering things about them (Gen. 37:2c) and instead of being chastised for it, he’s loved. No wonder his brothers hate him and refuse to talk to him anymore.

Joseph’s not even coy about his preferential treatment. He knows his brothers hate him for it, but instead of trying to build a bridge over troubled waters, he preens in it.

He wears his coat out to work where it serves no use except to get in the way. He wears it as a walking advertisement for all his brothers to see the lack of love their father felt for them. It’s like Joseph is rubbing their face in the dirt, kicking them while they’re down.

Of course, there are the dreams.

Joseph is given 2 dreams where it’s intimated that his brothers, maybe even his dad too, are going to end up bowing down to him like he’s some type of royalty.

We didn’t read the dreams but the first was how when they were farming his stalk of grain stood up straight while his brothers’ bowed low. The second was more explicit:

“this time the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” (Gen. 37:9)

It’s one thing to have these dreams and keep them to yourself, it’s another thing to showboat and spread them far and wide. Joseph of course did the latter—and it made his brothers jealous and hate him all the more.

Finally, we get to the brothers. It’s pretty easy to show you the sins of them.

Sometimes leaving a relationship is the right thing to do. Abuse of any kind is a good enough reason, but I don’t think your younger brother being a twit qualifies. While he was 17, they were older. Old enough to know even better than Joseph and all his youthful exuberance.

But we’re told multiple times by Genesis that they hated him. They hated him so much that they refused to talk to him.

The old advice of, “if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all,” is great for kids…but I think we can expect adults to be a bit more nuanced than that.

I hope we can develop an ability to hold on to emotions for the sake of family or institutional health—it’s one way to grease the gears of society. It’s also a way to show you know you’re supposed to love one another—staying in conversation.

Either way, their sins from there are obvious.

First, it’s the plot to kill Joseph and blame it on wild animals. Then it’s Reuben and his responsible cowardice—wanting to help Joseph but unwilling to voice opposition to the crowd; he suggests they throw him in a pit and let nature take its course, all the while knowing he’s going to circle back and save the kid.

His plan doesn’t come to fruition because of another brother’s ideas.

Judah might be the most reprehensible, questioning the usefulness of killing Joseph because they don’t get anything out of it and suggesting they sell him into slavery. Not much of an upgrade at all.

That’s what the brothers, minus Reuben, do, selling him to their cousins in a scene remarkably similar to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus.

The assigned scripture cuts the story short.

Reuben finds out what his brothers did and is dismayed. The brothers take the amazing technicolor dream coat, tear it to shreds and dip it in animal blood. They give it to Jacob who thinks his favorite son was slaughtered by a lion or something and is inconsolable.

“All of his sons and daughters got up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted, telling them, ‘I’ll go to my grave mourning for my son.’ And Joseph’s father wept for him.” (Gen. 37:35)

At this point it is easy to see this is not the picture of an idyllic family. They are sinners all the way through—Jacob, Joseph, and the 11 brothers.

And here at the end, we are only obliquely left with hope.

“Meanwhile the Midianites had sold Joseph to the Egyptians, to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s chief officer, commander of the royal guard.” (Gen. 37:36)

“Meanwhile” means the story is not over.

“Meanwhile” means something else is happening off scene.

“Meanwhile” means something is cooking, even if we are unaware.

Because besides being an origin story of how the Israelites settled in Egypt, the Joseph novella’s deep theme is the providence of God. Even though God is unnamed at all in this scripture—I’m serious, go back and read it and you will find nary a mention—God is not inactive. God is just working off-scene.

“Meanwhile” means there are seeds of love somewhere in there.

Whether active or complicit, our sins do not stop God’s redemptive purposes in the world or our lives. Our sins aren’t a barrier to God’s grace and mercy.

God only works with sinners because that’s all there is.

God does not come to love the loveable, help the helpful, improve the improvable, or dote upon the doted. God comes to rescue those dead in their sins—including you and me.

Because Christ was thought to be safe and secure in the pit of hell after his own countrymen crucified him, but God raised him up to new life defeating death and forgiving sin.

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No pit of death can secure God’s chosen because God won’t let it happen—indeed the Cross is the place of redemption.

Jacob, Joseph, and his brothers seem dead as dead can be—grief-stricken, enslaved, and guilty as guilty could be, but God is not done with them yet.

The seeds of love have been sown, even if the whole thing looks dead.

All it takes is a “meanwhile…” because meanwhile sounds an awful lot like “and on the third day…”

Now, I can fully admit I am not the target demographic for a twenty-something female pop star like Olivia Rodrigo, aging Millennial dad that I am, but hey—I like what I like. Her new album “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love” isn’t a guilty pleasure—I fully admit to enjoying it. If recently you’d’ve pulled up next to me with the windows down, you’d have witnessed quite the embarrassing karaoke session. I’ve been singing along a lot more than I’ve meant to.

The song I’ve had on repeat more often than not has been “The Cure.” It’s the song where a sort of morose light turns on in the album. Like many do, she thought that finding the right guy, the right relationship would make things better. She went in knowing she needed help: comparing herself to other girls, fighting “bad thoughts” and loneliness, even pushing herself to tears when considering her paramour’s history. Maybe this new relationship, this outside thing, would work and change her.

Every verse ends with a repeated line that speaks to the distance between her hope and reality: “I thought I found the antidote this time.” She thought she’d found the thing that would make her better, the thing that would make her feel enough, the thing that would work. How common it is to hear yourself say, “I thought.”

Because this is how we operate. This is humanity’s standard operating procedure: change the external to change the internal. We’re constantly looking for something out there to make everything okay. It’s why Tipper Gore advocated for parental advisory stickers on music in the 80s, self-help books tell you how to win friends and gain influence, and your parents didn’t let you play with those kids from the other side of the tracks. It’s the idea that what we take in controls who we are—good or bad.

We desperately try to locate defilement, contamination, and just plain badness out there. What are you eating? Did you wash your hands? What podcasts are you listening to? Where are you going to church? Did you grow up or move here? If we can control, that’s the key word, our environment and what we consume—then we won’t have to worry. We will be good.

It’s one of the reasons why the Pharisees were so upset with Jesus—he and his disciples weren’t adhering to the code of conduct that put you right with God. It was common practice, a well-known rule, that you washed your hands to be ritually pure before eating. This wasn’t about health code violations, but religious cleanliness. It was washing your hands just in case you touched something that made you ritually unclean. To be part of God’s people, you had to be clean and pure, you had to follow the rules about, among other things, what to touch and eat, what you consume. To be right with God, to be good and righteous, you walked the line of external purity.

Except that’s not where the trouble lies for us. The problem that keeps us from being good isn’t external, but something internal. It’s not somewhere out there as Fievel Mousekewitz sings in “An American Tail”; it’s inside us.

In response to the Pharisees’ critiques, Jesus announces to all who would hear: “It’s not what goes into the mouth that contaminates a person in God’s sight. It’s what comes out of the mouth that contaminates the person.” (Matthew 15:11) And even then, it’s not what you think and do in and of itself that separates you from God, but where those thoughts and actions originate: the heart. …what goes out of the mouth comes from the heart. And that’s what contaminates a person in God’s sight. (18)

The real trouble is our hearts, the place that holds our deepest desires. The reason we do the things we do, have the thoughts we have, like the music we like, is because of our heart. All those thoughts and actions have their genesis there. There’s an old saying that applies here: “What the heart wants, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.^[1]” We want what we want and then we figure out a reason why that is okay. What came out of us was already happening inside us. Lies, evil thoughts, insults, and all the rest—we were already thinking about them long before they escaped the clutches of our filters.

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Take the scene with Canaanite woman who pleads for her daughter to Jesus. As surprising and troubling as it is to hear Jesus insult a woman by calling her a “dog,” it’s an object lesson. It’s an illustration of how the heart is the driver, the place where good and evil meet. Matthew shows us instead of only telling us this fundamental truth about our hearts.

Jesus just taught his disciples this truth, and they don’t get it. Peter even asks for it to be further explained. So, Jesus takes them to Gentile country, a place where they are bound to run into someone who does not fit the common Jewish picture of what someone who is “good” in God’s eyes. And that’s just what happens.

The Canaanite woman shows up, embodying the word “outsider” in every way. By the standards of external to internal, Jesus shouldn’t associate with her. She would contaminate him. So, he doesn’t. He ignores her. He holds up commonly thought limits to his mission. He even hurls insults well known to his disciples. Each step of the way he shows what it looks like to care only about the external—she is not worthy of his time, care, or love.

Except his silence won’t deter her. His limits won’t bind her. And his insults won’t distract her. She does not care about insider or outsider status. She has found the One who can help her daughter. She has worshipful persistence in the face of all decorum and odds. Three times she calls him “Lord,” addressing Jesus with the language of “faith and worship,^[2]” something Jesus’ opponents cannot bring themselves to do. She is an outsider, yes, but she is an outsider with faith that simply asks for mercy, which she receives. The one who has nothing to offer beyond her need is given exactly that.

In centering the heart, Jesus doesn’t tell us to look harder at what’s going into us until we finally become clean. He throws that baby out with the bathwater—what you take in doesn’t change your status before God one iota. Olivia Rodrigo, Vivaldi, Springsteen, Luke Bryan, Taylor Swift, Charles Wesley, Yacht Rock, Jazz, Rap—they are all on equal ground when it comes to producing goodness in us. We all have our preferences, but none of them make us closer to God.

Instead, He tells us to look honestly at what’s coming out of us: what are those lies, evil thoughts, insults, and all the rest? Notice, it’s not just things people can see us doing but even the motivations (see Matthew 6.) He tells us to look there and be honest because he knows the truth of the human heart: The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it? (Jer. 17:9) He exposes the human heart for what it is: curved in on itself, always seeking what’s best for it.

He exposes the truth and then he delivers the cure. When we discover that the problem is deeper than we can fix, he gives us what we cannot give ourselves: mercy, grace, and his own righteousness. Out of our need, we cry out for help and find he has already given it to us: God caused the one who didn’t know sin to be sin for our sake so that through him we could become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21) At the Cross, Jesus gives us his own righteousness, his own goodness. In forgiving and freeing us from Sin and Death, he goes down deep, beginning a new work in our hearts. This is the mercy he shows the Canaanite woman and it’s what he shows gives to us.

We spend an inordinate amount of time, attention, even money trying to find the cure for our problems outside ourselves. We are no different than Rodrigo. But Jesus turns us inside, forcing us to look at our hearts and what comes out of them: both good and evil. Even as Christians, we are simul justus ex peccator: saints and sinners still. When the truth is exposed, we still find a heart best by selfishness, envy, pride, and resentment.

But Jesus does not wait for us to have good hearts. No, he meets us in our need and gives us a righteousness that is not ours. Even while Sin still lurks, we are good because Christ is good. And because Jesus has given us his own goodness, his life and love begin to flow out of us because that same life and love are changing us from the inside out.

^[1] https://acl.asn.au/resources/dr-ashley-null-on-thomas-cranmer/

^[2] NIBC Vol. 7, p. 242.

There are some different prayer practices I engage in from time to time. They’re things that I’ve found useful to quiet myself, find some peace, help with discernment, or seek betterment for others.

I keep a labyrinth on my desk to slowly make my way to the middle and back out while praying the Lord’s Prayer or asking God to guide me. There have been seasons where I’ve held fast to the Daily Office, joining my more liturgical siblings in Christ in Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer on Zoom. The Daily Examen has been fruitful before in helping me review the day, noticing those God moments.

Heck, these days my most fruitful prayer tool is a 9:15 PM alarm that just says “PRAY.” I need that reminder to stop what I’m doing—reading, watching tv, falling asleep—and talk to God, listing the names of people who I know need the Spirit to fall afresh on them.

However, none of these are what actually brings my faith.

They enhance it. They nurture it. They support it.

But they aren’t its genesis.

Faith isn’t something we create ourselves through prayer practices; it’s something we receive by hearing.

Paul makes it clear that faith doesn’t begin with prayer, but with preaching. We need someone to share the good news with us. We need someone to speak faith into us.

This need not be someone who stands behind a pulpit or lectern on a Sunday, expositing that day’s assigned scripture.

There’s that quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi that often makes the more liberal Christian rounds, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” It speaks to the idea that faith has a shape. We need people to show us what believing the Gospel looks like, how it shapes our actions and attitudes in the world.

One real reason people stopped going to church was because they saw the distance between teaching and implementation. They noticed there was a difference between what they read and heard—love your neighbor as yourself, pick up your self-sacrificial cross and follow Jesus, God desires mercy not sacrifice—and how people actually lived.

Words alone don’t prove we believe. Faith eventually becomes embodied in how we live.

“More than words/ Is all you have to do to make it real/ Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me/ 'Cause I'd already know,” as Extreme sung over thirty years ago. People need the words to take hold into action—it’s how we know faith has legs.

However, you can’t put the cart before the horse; those works flow from what is preached. Those good works are the natural output of gospel faith. They are the fruit of the plant.

They are necessary and good, but they can’t happen unless that first seed is sown. Prayer practices can help faith grow, but they don’t get it planted.

The Gospel, that because of Jesus’ death and resurrection you are forgiven and free from Sin and Death, is something that needs to be heard. It might not be those exact words or from a sermon, but it could be a Substack post you share, a surprising thank you note in the mail, or even a text that says “It’s not all on your shoulders,” as a preacher-friend of mine reminded me this week.

Either way, those words are how gospel faith is planted.

I wonder, who might need that word from you?

Of course, Frog’s story ends with him safe and sound, but it’s a sufficiently spooky story for a 5-year-old with just enough tension to, you guessed it, give the shivers. The shivers are that feeling of low-grade wariness from a safe position. It’s a feeling of “I don’t know about this,” but nothing is really at stake. The shivers is the type of fear we like, a safe combination of manufactured, “out there,” and “of maybe yes and maybe no” reality.

We’re okay with the shivers because, ultimately, we’re safe. But then there are the things that really scare us. The things where there is no safe distance. What are you afraid of? keeps you up at night? What do you not like to talk about? Is it losing control physically and mentally as you age? Not being loved back? Feeling like all your effort and work has been worthless? Becoming like your parents? There are things beyond the shivers that terrify us.

The Disciples in our gospel story are described as so terrified that they scream. When’s the last time you heard a grown man scream in terror? The thing is that they are right to be. Traveling across a lake at night with no GPS and no flashlights, having been tossed like rag dolls in a sea storm. When we find them, it’s the end of the night, somewhere between 3 and 6 AM, and they are soaked and tired to the bone from just trying to survive. It’s a little metaphor for life and the chaos of the world is winning. In their delirium, they think they see a ghost, a poltergeist there to finish the job because why not?

Except, we know it’s not a ghost. It’s Jesus. He finally got his alone time after feeding 5,000. After sending the disciples ahead to the other side of the lake by boat, he went up to the mountain to grieve John the Baptist after he was murdered. He got his alone time and then went to be with his friends, utilizing a bit of his divine nature to do so. Maybe he was trying to show his disciples they had nothing to fear, that the one they follow is indeed one who rules the wind and waves.

It doesn’t work though. They’re afraid, terrified, and they scream. They couldn’t recognize Jesus. Their eyes are clouded by expectation and fear. Sometimes we can’t recognize Jesus when he meets us in our fears because he doesn’t show up like we expect. He shows up in surprising ways and we don’t see because he doesn’t fit our preconceived notions.

But Jesus tries to assuage their fears with a quick word. “Be encouraged, it’s me. Don’t be afraid.” He’s trying to speak faith into them. He’s trying to get them to remember the last time they were in a boat when he calmed the storm just by telling it to “calm down!” He’s trying to get them to realize he literally stands above all that brings fear into the world. All those things that have us lying in bed awake in the middle of the night paralyzed, struck with panic, they find their end in him.

But then…Peter pulls a Peter. Head strong and impulsive, he speaks on behalf of all disciples when he says, “if you are who you say you are…” He’s hedging his bets, vacillating between fear and belief. He’s saying, “maybe yes, maybe no.”

The problem is, this isn’t the first time Jesus has heard someone talk like this, questioning his identity. In fact, this line of thinking could be classified as “demonic” because it was Satan who said such things during Jesus’ temptation. “Since you are God’s son command these stones and jump off that temple…”

This is the moment of wavering that Jesus later chastises. It’s not that Peter takes his eye off Jesus or doesn’t believe in Jesus enough, it’s that he wants certainty. He wants to feel safe even as the wind is battering. He wants his terror to recede into shivers. Jesus calls Peter to come out on the water and Peter initially pulls off the miraculous, but his fears get in the way. The wind picks up and he focuses solely on himself and his plight. Maybe that’s a metaphor for sin—the messes we make for ourself, sure, but also the way our attention so easily shifts from Jesus to ourselves, from the One who calls us to the things that cause us to shiver in fright.

Peter cries out the right thing “Lord, rescue me!” He’s afraid—just like we are. Rescue me from death, rescue from failure, rescue me from myself. It could also read, “save me!” Save me from myself! There’s no time for an excuse, an apology, or even a prayer. He’s sinking fast and needs help from the outside, someone to save him. Which of course, Jesus does, pulling him up to new life. He saves Peter, pulling him from the depths of despair and bringing him to new life. How does the old gospel song go?

“I was sinking deep in sin,
Far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within,
Sinking to rise no more;
But the Master of the sea
Heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me–
Now safe am I.^[1]”

When they are safe and sound back on the boat with Jesus’ presence calming yet another storm, all the disciples fall down in worship, confessing, “You must be God’s Son.” The only other time something like that is said in Matthew is when centurion at the Cross sees Jesus sacrifices and confesses. Matthew wants us to see these stories together. He wants us to see that the Cross is where Jesus rescues us all from the depths of chaos, fear, and sin.

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What Jesus does for Peter in the middle of the chaotic storm is a window into what Jesus will do for all of us at Golgotha. Peter cries, “Lord, save me!” and Jesus reaches down into the depths to rescue him. At the Cross, Jesus goes even deeper—into all suffering, death, and the full depths of human sin—only to rise again on the third morning. The one who reaches down to rescue Peter is the same one who reaches down to rescue us.

So, whenever we get the shivers, or the shivers descend into something much more frightening, Jesus speaks to us again: “be encouraged, it’s me! Don’t be afraid.” He doesn’t say this because there’s nothing terrifying in the world. There is. And it’s not because we won’t ever sink. We will. It’s just that those things that terrify us don’t have the final word. The shivers don’t get the final word. Fear doesn’t get the final word. Death doesn’t get the final word. Jesus does.

^[1] https://hymnary.org/text/i_was_sinking_deep_in_sin_far_from_the#google_vignette

At the end of their night-long wrestling match, God graces Jacob and gives him two gifts despite his complete lack of deserving them. Because let’s face it, Jacob doesn’t deserve anything at this point. By this point, we’ve heard about how he is a trickster who steals, puts others (including his wife and children!) in harm’s way to save his skin, and has only a quid pro quo relationship with God.

At no point does Jacob show he’s deserving of any gift. He probably doesn’t deserve a second glance from God, but at the very least we should expect God to pin Jacob down and force him to tap out. But God doesn’t. Instead, God gives gifts to Jacob.

Grace is when you’re given a gift you don’t deserve, and Jacob is given two to remind him of who he is and who God is.

First, God blesses him with a new name—Israel, one who has struggled with God and man. No longer is he the heel-grabbing, birthright-stealing, weasel of a second born—he is a struggler. A fighter. Someone who endured and came out the other side. Down by the river, the old Jacob has been drowned, and Israel is raised to new life.

I don’t want you to miss the baptismal symbolism here—it’s a prefiguring of the work of Christ to forgive and redeem you on the Cross. In the waters of baptism, we die a death like his and are raised to new life like his—we are given a new identity, a new name—child of God.

But—and this is the second gift—God also marks Israel for life.

Limping around for the rest of his life, Jacob is marked by God. Touching his hip, God cripples Jacob forever.

This is not a nice tattoo to mark an important moment in life. It’s not a plaque to be hung on a wall to show achievement. It’s something that would give him a handicapped parking pass, something people would show pity toward, something that might cause people to see him as “less than.”

And I’m sure it hurt.

God’s grace is painful and leaves a scar, but it is good and blesses us.

What the world sees as weakness in Jacob’s limp is really a mark of his faithfulness and blessedness. It’s something he suffers, but it also reminds him of his nighttime wrestling match—reminds him that God did not abandon him.

It’s as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians:

I was given a thorn in my body because of the outstanding revelations I’ve received so that I wouldn’t be conceited. It’s a messenger from Satan sent to torment me so that I wouldn’t be conceited. I pleaded with the Lord three times for it to leave me alone. He said to me, “My grace is enough for you, because power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:7–9)

This is what it means to be blessed in faith: not the absence of suffering, but remembering God’s faithfulness in the midst of it.

Struggling with God and his grace leaves you marked. You aren’t the same person. Indeed, the Old Adam in us that acts like Jacob—always trying to control and scheme and manipulate our future—must die for the New Adam to be raised.

That dying, that struggling, is going to leave a mark.

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I mean, even when he was raised to new life, Jesus still bore the marks of the Cross on his hands and side for all to see. Why would you and I be any different?

It’s just that ours will probably look a little different when we experience, believe, and live God’s love:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal. 5:22–23)

Those may not look like scars to the world, but every act of love, every moment of joy, and every gesture of gentleness is a mark left behind by a life that has wrestled with God—and discovered that grace is always what remains.

We visited a theological school where pastors and church leaders learned and were trained. We met with coffee farmers who’d learned holistic and regenerative agricultural practices (and got to take home some of fruit of their labors, the best coffee I’ve ever had.) We even visited towns where things like wells were placed to make sure people didn’t have to walk miles for clean water.

One of those places we visited was a community named El Porvenir. Hiking up a mountain because our SUV got stuck, a man named Pedro welcomed us into his village where about 200 souls lived in 30 families.

Before showing us the well providing new clean water for showering, laundry, cooking and cleaning, we were quickly ushered into what we found out was Pedro’s home. It was a 3-room stone building with dirt floors and a zinc (think tin) roof. It was simple and clean as could be, but you’d be hard-pressed to call it anything other than a shack. The power, only installed less than 3 years before, was out. Not an uncommon occurrence.

Inside, he took us into a room full of tables and white plastic chairs, the sort you’d have for the family reunion. We found the tables were set, because he and his family had made and were going to serve us lunch. We were happy because everyone was hungry after an early breakfast and hiking to the village.

We dined on scrumptious soup chocked full of maize dumplings and chicken. Basically, we were served the Nicaraguan version of chicken and dumplings. And it was a feast; every time someone finished their bowl, immediately it was filled again. Everyone ate until they were full.

Pedro shared what he had with people who needed it. In doing so, we got to practice heaven: full of grace and abundance. I wonder if that was what the crowd felt like after today’s story.

But the Feeding of the More Than 5,000 wasn’t what Jesus initially had in mind for his day. No, our story starts off with Jesus retreating into the Wilderness, that place where the wild things are and God tends to show up in surprising ways. Jesus goes there to be alone, packing up and trying to leave everyone and everything behind because some truly horrific news had finally reached him: John the Baptist, his cousin, forerunner in ministry, and, in some ways, mentor was horrifically murdered. We need to spend a minute or two there.

John had run afoul of the Puppet King Herod and his new bride, Herodias who used to be the wife of Herod’s brother Philip and both of their niece. Don’t get me started on what Thanksgiving Dinner was like in that house. John had the audacity to say such flamboyantly partisan and vitriolic things as, “It’s against the law for you to marry her.” (Matt. 14:4) It was against Torah or Jewish Law for such close relatives to marry; crazy for John to point that out!

From there, John was just a victim to the whims of a scared despot. Herod did not act out of love except for anyone but himself. As a symbol of the Kingdom of the World, as opposed to Jesus being the divine sealed representative of God’s kingdom, Herod was all about self-justification and self-preservation. He didn’t care what’s right or truthful, only what was best for him. Like every human, his heart was curved in on itself.

Herod wanted to kill John, but the public opinion polls had him afraid—the people would riot because they think John’s sent from God. John’s goodwill saved him from the ways of the world. But then Herod threw a party, a feast really, for his birthday. It turned out to be a feast of death.

Herod made a hasty promise to his Herodias’ daughter, whom we know to be named Salome, promising her to give her whatever she wanted because she “thrilled” him and his guests with her dancing. If you’re feeling the ick at that, you’re right where you should be. Herodias took the opportunity to use Salome to satiate her anger at John, telling Salome to ask for John the Baptist’s head on a platter, which Salome did.

And again, Herod had the spine of a jellyfish. The request tore him up from the inside out, but he refused to do what’s right. He gave in to pressure from his guests and the promise he made, going through with the execution. Matthew includes the graphic line: They brought his head on a plate and gave it to the young woman, and she brought it to her mother. (Matthew 4:11) What was served by the world was death.

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No wonder Jesus flees to the outer rim. He’s either scared that what happened to John is going to happen to him or he’s grieving the loss of his family and mentor. Understandably, he needs time for himself…but he doesn’t get it.

The crowds impedes his alone time, but instead of seeing them as a problem, telling them to go away because he’s overstimulated, Jesus leans into their need. He serves them because he knows they are like sheep without a shepherd to lead and care and love them. In fact, their need tears him up from the inside out and he does the good and true and right thing—give them grace. He heals those who are sick even though they’ve interrupted his R&R. He gives them something they don’t deserve.

This, Jesus’ act of grace, is the backdrop for the Feeding of the More Than 5,000. I keep on calling it that because Matthew makes sure to let us know there were 5,000 men plus women and children. The day goes on, and the disciples, displaying a semblance of care if only in the conventional way, want Jesus to send the crowd back into town to buy food. But Jesus turns it back on them—”don’t rely on the world when you can do it. Don’t send them away but feed them yourselves.” Which, they do.

They have meager offerings—some fish just recently caught (they were on a lake after all and Jesus can be a little long-winded) and some less than fresh bread—but they are more than enough in the Jesus’ hands. In an act eerily similar to what will happen during the Last Supper, Jesus takes, blesses, breaks, and gives the elements, calling on the disciples to distribute the good things to the people.

And everyone is fed. Everyone ate until they were full. There was no saving and skimping. This was not a struggle meal where you try and stretch spaghetti for days because payday is Friday and your bank account perilously close to zero. Can you imagine what that must have felt like for the crowd? It might have been the first time those kids had ever had enough food placed in front of them to have leftovers. Jesus’ ways are ways of abundance where you are filled to the brim with good things, even if you interrupt his alone time with your neediness. That is what God’s feast is like.

We are supposed to compare the two feast stories, Herod’s and Christ’s. Herod’s was a feast of death led by a guy who care only about his own skin. That’s the world’s representative, the guy who embodies all the values of a fallen existence: self-preservation and self-justification. Then there’s Jesus who leads a feast of grace and abundance. He embodies the Kingdom of Heaven through and through. Herod hoards power, protects himself, and serves death. Christ gives himself away, trusts God’s provision, and serves life—a little preview of what Jesus does on the Cross.

When the disciples moved from person to person, giving more and more food away, they were showing us what it is like practice heaven, because Revelation describes it as a wedding feast. They were giving God’s good gifts to people who need them. They weren’t the ones who created the abundance but shared it. They didn’t manufacture grace but distributed it. They didn’t save the world but were faithful with what was placed in their hands.

The good news is that Jesus never asks us to be the source of grace and abundance. He is. We simply place what we have in to his hands, trusting he will use it for those right in front of us.

Maybe that’s why I still think about Pedro and that feast we shared in his little shack. He wasn’t performing a miracle, but he was practicing heaven, giving it to us. He shared what Christ had first given him—and I’m not just talking about chicken and dumplings. We feasted on grace and mercy. And everyone ate until they were full.

This might be one of my all time favorite scriptures because it speaks to the underlying dis-ease at work in humanity: we are alone. There is a hollowness to life right now that leaves us caught between the extreme poles of feeling like we are simultaneously burnt out while never actually doing enough.

You just vacillate from one to the other depending on the day. Maybe sometimes you feel them both at the same time.

Into this void, Paul doesn’t just remind us but preaches to us that while we might feel alone, we aren’t. There is one who is with us and “for us" over and above all those things in this world that we experience as against us.

Nothing can separate us from God's love in Christ because Jesus has acted on our behalf once and for all. He died and rose to bring forgiveness and new life. He gave us the Spirit to pray when we cannot. Even now, he still intervenes for us whenever we inevitably make a mess of things.

“Jesus Christ himself, who took on weakness and died a shameful death to glorify weak people, who was raised and with whom we also will be raised, and who has a place of honor with God, now intercedes for us. How could anything possibly separate us from such a love?”1

The answer is, of course, nothing.

And we can know this on a surface level—checking the theological box as it comes up. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” or so I sing to my girls when they wake up scared in the middle of the night.

But it is much harder to believe it in your bones.

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That’s why we need people like Paul to speak it to us, to remind us, to give us this gift of the gospel. Just as we don’t baptize ourselves, we need someone else to preach God’s faithfulness to us: in Christ, God has gone and done it all.

We see what this looks like and sounds like in “Good Will Hunting” starring Matt Damon and Robin Williams. I love this movie, and not just because I was given the name “Good” when I joined my fraternity.2

In the movie, it’s easy to focus on the prodigy part—how Will, who doesn’t fit the ideal image of who would fit in with the yuppies of the Boston intellectual circle, is a genius. He calls out a traditional Harvard stereotype’s intellectual dishonesty, tries pretty successfully to defend himself in court, and runs circles around the mathematics department at MIT.

He’s the underdog that you want to root for, even if he is at times petulant, full of himself, and just downright mean. Right from the very beginning, you can tell he’s on a self-destructive path from which you hope he will break free: getting into violent fights, refusing to cooperate with court-mandated counselors, spurning job offers, and pushing away love.

What really pulls me in, though, is the grace-filled relationship between Will and his counselor Sean, played by Williams. I say it’s grace-filled, but it doesn’t really look that way most of the way through.

Will insults Sean’s deceased wife and Sean threatens to “end” Will. Then Sean tells Will he only has theoretical knowledge of the world and not real experience when the subject of love comes up. Sean accuses Will of refusing to allow himself to get close to anyone when talking about soulmates and Will responds by positing Sean has transformed into an agoraphobic recluse after Sean’s wife’s death.

But as much like it seems as they might, they never turn away from each other.

Everything comes to a head in the movie’s most stirring scene: their final counseling session. Years of abuse, abandonment, and shame finally are admitted.

And then Sean preaches a gospel word, a word that frees Will.

Dropping the file filled to the brim with Will’s collective hurt, trauma, and pain, Sean says, “You see this…it’s not your fault.”

Sean says it through Will’s initial tacit acknowledgement—it’s not your fault. He says it again as Will gets more incredulous. He says it again when Will questions what Sean is doing. He says it again when Will rebuffs him, physically trying to push Sean’s words away. He says it again until Will breaks down into tears and accepts the truth: It’s not your fault.

We need someone to say it to us because we can’t do it ourselves. And honestly, it might take you hearing it again and again and again.

So, allow me:

Nothing can separate you from God’s love in Christ Jesus.

Not your childhood trauma. Not your abuser. Not your attachment issues. Not your failures to do the right thing. Not your fledgling career. Not your body shame. Not your addiction. Not your grief. Not your sexuality. Not your illness. Not your age.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Nothing done or left undone by or to you.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, in all creation can separate you from God’s love in Christ Jesus.

Sometimes the words for prayers don’t come. Maybe it’s because I’m tired. Maybe it’s because I’m frustrated. Maybe it’s because I’m sad. The reasons shift, but it’s like writer’s block for prayer. The intention is there and I want to pray, but sometimes it seems like something is stopping me.

Maybe you feel the same way. Someone just gave you some bad news, or you get called on before Thanksgiving Dinner, or you’ve been lying in your bed for what seems like hours, or whatever. A situation arises and you know prayer is an appropriate response as a person of faith, but the words won’t come.

It’s times like these I’m thankful we don’t have to come up with prayers all on our own. We don’t have to make up prayers as we go. There is no more value in saying a prayer someone else wrote than one you came up with right there on the spot. God isn’t the Academy rewarding creativity, nor is God the Pulitzers awarding writing. Prayer is more like a language—a child learns it from imitating their parents and others.

Some people place a heavy emphasis on coming up with our own words. It’s as if they think prayers MEAN more when they bubble up deep from within. Like someone is being inauthentic or unfaithful if we use prayers that are written out, let alone prayerfully penned by someone else. Spontaneity here is evidence of deep faith.

But I don’t think God cares one bit. God knows there will be times when we don’t know what to say or we feel like we CAN’T pray. That’s why God has given us resources, written and unwritten ones.

The Psalms are a treasure trove of prayers people of the faith have been praying for millennia. Jesus gave his disciples the Lord’s Prayer when they asked him to teach them how to pray. And even then, we have help when the words won’t come: In the same way, the Spirit comes to help our weakness. We don’t know what we should pray, but the Spirit himself pleads our case with unexpressed groans. (Rom. 8:26)

Writer’s block in prayer happens. Dry spells in creativity are as common as mosquito bites in summer. The inability to come up with your own prayers is nothing to be ashamed of. It certainly isn’t evidence of weaker, inauthentic, or milquetoast faith.

When you feel this way just go back to one of the golden oldies our ancestors of the faith have been memorizing and praying since before we were glimmers in our great-great-great grandparents’ eyes. The Lord’s Prayer is always good and I use the Daily Office more often than not, but where I go back to again and again and again when the words just won’t come is Psalm 121.

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.

The Lord is your helper and keeper, even when it feels like you’re in the doldrums of faith. God’s care for you doesn’t depend on you saying some magic prayer formula.

When your praying fails, God doesn’t. The Spirit is still talking for you, the Psalms are still speaking with you, and Christ is still listening to you.

I’ve basically lived in 3 states as an adult: Texas, Iowa, and Missouri. At each stop, I’ve been a gardener. Never tried to do anything big—some tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, zucchini, and such. Enough to make it worth my while, though of course I’d’ve spent less money if I just bought the vegetables at the store. Not the point of it.

In Texas, Hannah and I rented a plot at a community garden because it’s Texas and the soil isn’t worth more than ranching longhorns. Even then, the raised bed was a catastrophe. We had fire ants make a colony inside, pill bugs eating the roots of plants, and squash bugs doing their thing. It just wasn’t a good place to grow—at least not for us.

At our house here in Missouri, it’s kind of similar. Our yard is just one big claypit—you could probably fire bricks from it. Of course, there are parts of the state in which one could garden to their heart’s content, my backyard isn’t one of them. Trying to maintain a yard for playing while also gardening led us again to a raised bed. But again, results have been mixed at best. We’ve had to add compost each year hoping that it would increase the quality of the soil and make our plants healthier. This year’s garden is okay, makes me think we’re on the right track.

But in Iowa, my garden flourished. We lived in the parsonage of my wife’s church, and they let me hand till (I’m talking about using a hoe) a 4x8 little garden out back. The soil was as black as night that smelled heavenly—I miss that smell. It was the best. Anything we put in that garden produced more than we could eat. We did our best to give away what we couldn’t eat between the two us, and it was a lot.

It’s all about the soil, right? That’s what I’ve been taught about gardening. If you want your garden to produce, to make it worth your while, to have enough produce that you can share, you need to focus on the soil. You gotta have some, it can’t be shallow, and you gotta get rid of the weeds and thorns that choke out your plants, right?

Of course, I’m talking about more than my small attempts at horticulture. When we hear Jesus’ famous Parable of the Farmer, we naturally are attracted to the soil. It’s what he describes the people being during his explanation. There are four types: the path, the shallow, the weak/thorn choked, and the good. Jesus explains to his confused disciples that only one type of soil produces the fruit of the Kingdom. So, we take that as a not-so-subtle command to focus on transforming ourselves into good soil that the seed of the good news can flourish and produce a yield that germinates in others. So how do we do that?

Let’s start off by talking about those soils that fail, the ones we need to avoid being.

First there is the path, which is no soil at all. You can’t expect God’s grace and mercy to grow in your life if you’re unwilling to believe it. George Michael was right—you gotta have faith, lest the gospel be snatched by a starling, robin, or black-capped chickadee. Can’t be a path.

Then there’s the shallow soil. It’s good, but not deep. There’s not enough space there for things to really take hold. When the pain and suffering of life come or when your priorities are questioned by relationships, family, calendars, or jobs, it fizzles. You move on to something else that’ll make you feel good, if only for a moment, and the kingdom shrivels away to nothing. Can’t be shallow soil.

Next there’s that thorn-choked soil full of weeds. It hasn’t done a very good job tending to itself, allowing some other priorities and points of view in and take up the space. God’s grace and mercy make their way in, but wanting to have more money or keeping up with the Joneses or climbing the corporate ladder choke out any hope of fruit. The plant is there, but it’s basically good for nothing. Can’t be thorn-choked soil.

Finally, the good soil. It produces. Jesus never tells us what the fruit of the Kingdom is here—we’re supposed to assume its acts of mercy and sharing his graceful work. You gotta produce. The proof is in the pudding. If you want God and others to see you’re good soil, you gotta show everyone all the good works you’re doing. Sure, Jesus already said not to let your left hand know what you’re right hand is doing, but never mind that—how else would you be good soil if people can’t see what you produce?

But there are a couple of problems.

Number one: what makes good soil good so that it does produce a yield of one hundred, sixty, and thirty to one? It’s compost, which is a just a fancy way of saying manure, or cow-poop. What makes us a fertile place for the gospel aren’t the things in life the world considers successful or enviable, but those things that put you down in the dumps and smell (see Matthew 5.) What makes us good are those things we would never willingly choose.

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Which is good, because, and this is number two, you can’t choose to be better soil. Just as a plant can’t simply CHOOSE to produce more fruit, soil can’t become anything other than what it is. It has to have something done to it from the outside. Someone else is adding the manure. Someone else is taking the time to bend over and painstakingly pull thorny weeds. Someone else is pouring down bags of topsoil. Someone else is setting up the raised bed in the first place.

Matthew includes the parable to reassure his congregation as to why certain people refused to follow Jesus and the kingdom he preached and showed, still manifests, and will inaugurate in the future. “Some were just bad soil!” he seems to be saying, “that’s why they said ‘no.’”

But we worry too much about which soil we are because it lets us feel in control. We morph the parable into a fable about making yourself be better or else Jesus’ kingdom (the plant here) won’t grow in you as if God is contingent on certain conditions.

So maybe it’s best not to focus on the soil and how we can make ourselves better. It’s not called “The Parable of the Soils” after all. Titles betray the focus, and Jesus tells us at the beginning of his interpretation what the title of his story is, where the focus is: “Consider then the parable of the farmer…”(Matthew 13:18)

As much as its about why some people don’t respond positively to Jesus and his grace, it’s just as much a story about God’s prodigal personality when it comes to the Kingdom. We need to focus on God’s nature not ours, trusting that God is abundant and generous, just like God’s kingdom will be. God will take care of the soil, even if it does mean mixing some sh…stuff in our lives to make us better.

God sheds his grace far and wide without regard to where it will land. God loved all of creation so much he sent the Son to bring life to those who would trust him. Just as God sends rains on the just and unjust, God is no respecter of soils, giving all a chance to hear, repent, and believe the good news.

There is nothing you can do to stop God from trying to plant his good news in you to grow and blossom and yield thirty, sixty, one hundred-fold. There are things in us and in our world that could prevent it from germinating or producing, but that’s not going to stop the Jesus speaking faithfulness right into us.

Here’s the thing about the Parable of the Farmer: it shows us God’s disposition is one of grace. Grace is when you give something to someone that they don’t deserve. God doesn’t care if you’re a path or shallow or choked-out soil. God is going to throw you the same forgiveness and new life he throws to everyone.

And I don’t know about you, but that sounds like good news to me, because my faith waxes and wanes daily leaving me like a path. Sometimes my faith is shallow and the frustrations with trying to live faithfully in a complex world aren’t so easily cast aside. And still more I daydream about what I would spend the Powerball on, of course tithing ten percent. It’s safe to say those days where my faith is “good soil” aren’t as numerous as I want. Sound familiar?

But that doesn’t change God’s disposition of generosity toward us. It doesn’t change Christ’s once and for all action on the Cross—dying and rising to forgive and raise us to new life. It doesn’t change the Holy Spirit interceding on our behalf when we don’t know have the words to pray. Our life and faith, or lack thereof, don’t change the fact that Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are with and for you.

I’ve slowly been forced to admit my garden here may never look like it did in Iowa—that is God’s country after all. But I’ve also come to see that that’s okay. What’s more important is my adopting God’s attitude: sowing generously, composting liberally, and doing it for the sheer enjoyment of it all. For the kingdom of God has never and will never depend on perfect soil—the love of God does not find but creates that which is pleasing to it. Instead, God’s Kingdom has always depended on God being a terrible but generous farmer who will keep sowing grace into imperfect people like us. Amen.

We’d been up in Iowa for a whirlwind of a holiday trip. We jam-packed it with activities: RV hangouts, dinner with great-grandma, Science Center, symphony concert on the lawn, fireworks, farmer’s market, water gun fight, family reunion.

There was so much done in so little time with still more left on the table. But we had to go—the dog needed to be picked up, dinner had to be eaten, and someone (me) had to finish up Sunday’s sermon.

We were also trying to time it up with our toddler’s naptime, hoping against hope that she would have an extended rest in the car.

Wet clothes were changed out of. Food was shoved into hands. Goodbyes were said too hastily. And we were off.

Of course, plans didn’t work out the way we hoped.

When my mom asked the next day how the trip home went, I described it in one word: Hell.

Within the first hour we’d been asked how long the trip was no less than four times, snacks had been requested at least three times, screen-time was brought up at least twice, and both kids had woken each other up from naps.

The friction was palpable as raised voices got louder, threats turned into reality, and tears freely flowed.

It all culminated in me turning into a sit-com dad: pulling the car into a gravel commuter lot, hauling my seven year old out of the car shoeless, and yelling at her for her treatment of my wife.

And honestly, it didn’t help. It never does. I’ve been trying to deal with my anger ever since childhood. No amount of yelling has ever made anything better. It might get quick results, but the lasting effects are never really worth it.

Paul even lists losing your temper as one of the selfish desires the Spirit is set against, see Galatians 5:19-21a.

I know this. I trust this. I believe this. It’s just a battle to live it.

This is what Paul means when he wrote: The desire to do good is inside of me, but I can’t do it. I don’t do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I don’t want to do. (Rom. 8:18b-19)

Talking about the effect of Sin in believers’ lives, there is still a gap between what he knows he should do and what he does. Just because he knows he should do or not do something doesn’t mean he will.

Sin is a power that continues to tempt, cajole, and pull us away from God.

Being saved, washed clean, and living in the Spirit, all ways to just say “living as a Christian,” doesn’t mean that Sin goes away; that will only happen when Jesus returns to complete the work of bringing in God’s Kingdom.

In this life we are simul justus et peccator, Saints and Sinners. You are forgiven and freed from Sin and Death, but they still hound you at every corner. Jesus has taken your mistakes and shortcoming into himself, but they remain with you.

That means that you will still struggle with anger or jealousy or over-competitiveness. It doesn’t make those right—Paul still would call them selfish and even evil—but we already know that.

What it does mean is that because of Christ’s work, those things won’t separate you from God’s love. Nothing can do that. The author of time has claimed you as his own—nothing can take that away.

But more than that, we are not left alone in the dark with our demons: each of us has been made alive in the Spirit. Delivered from your dead corpse (Rom. 8:24), Christ has given you the Holy Spirit to guide and push and shove and lead and cajole and drag you into a more holy life that looks like Christ.

It’s just the Spirit likes to use our failures to do so.

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What snapped me out of my rage wasn’t my wife coming out of the car. She came to tell me my yelling wasn’t helping, but actively making things worse as now our two year-old was crying inside the car.

No, what made my anger come crashing down hard was my seven year old telling me “you don’t have to yell at me!”

Through my shouts, her voice both convicted me and empowered me—I shouldn’t yell AND I have the power to stop. Out of the mouths of a babe, the Law and Gospel was spoken all at once: I should stop and I have been given the power to.

The Spirit through my daughter imputed that ability into me even when the facts were against it, and she was right.

I stopped. We got back in the car. We went on our way. I apologized—to her and my wife.

Now, will there come a time where I yell at her again? Sure. Let the reader know that time has already come and gone!

But there has also come another time where I apologized. Another time where I heard, “I forgive you.” Another time where I was met with grace instead of judgment.

That’s just like the Spirit: not pretending our failures aren’t real, but refusing to stop turning sinners into saints—even if it’s bit by bit.

To help raise money, a group of artists and writers were solicited for donations that would then become an exhibit people would pay to see and read. Emma Lazarus was one of those writers. First approached by a U.S. Senator from New York, Lazarus had to be convinced by her fellow literati-friend Constance Cary-Harrison to contribute something, a way of supporting Jewish refugees fleeing antisemitic pogroms and violence in Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of Eastern Europe.

So, she penned a sonnet in 1883 for the exhibition entitled, “The New Colossus,” imagining the Statue of Liberty welcoming the immigrant masses to the United States similar but different to way the Colossus of Rhodes welcomed the ancients to that island. A display of power and ingenuity to be sure, Lady Liberty was to evoke something else. It was eventually emblazoned onto the statue itself in 1903. Here’s what she wrote:

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door![1]”

Her cries for the world to give her the tired, poor, wretched refuse, homeless, and tempest-tost, are an ideal, a goal, a vision for what the United States is to be and value. And while our country hasn’t always lived up to this ideal—the poem itself having been written the same years as Jim Crow laws were being established all over the south to disenfranchise and subjugate black people—it’s there in the background no matter what.

It might have been yesterday’s festivities that put the poem on my mind, but it was also there because of me getting ready to talk about what Jesus said in our scripture today: Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28) Jesus invites to himself all the struggling, weary, burdened, labored, and burned out. He is the light of the nations, calling the least, last, lost, little, and dead away from the world that oppresses, subjugates, entraps, and kills.

Jesus has been doing his ministry—you know making the Kingdom real by healing the sick, raising the hurt, giving sight to the blind, and preaching the good news—and the response by those who should have known better left him frustrated. The religious leaders, the ones who look an awful lot like me, couldn’t see what Jesus was up to. He wasn’t fitting into their preconceived notions of how things were supposed to go.

While they were angry with John the Baptist’s more ascetic and rigorous style of living and preaching (he did call them a “brood of vipers” though), they criticized Jesus for his more than “lax ways” that led him to eating and drinking with the community’s undesirables. No matter who God sent, those in power didn’t like the operation. It seems they were more invested in clinging to what little power they had than being open to what God was actually doing right in front of their faces. Not that that’s ever happened since then, right?

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But Jesus bristles against their arrogance. They aren’t like Paul who can see the incongruence between what he should do and what he actually does. They don’t recognize their hearts are actually curved in on themselves, making them incapable of doing anything other than what is good for them. They don’t see how they heap burdens onto others with all the “oughts” and “shoulds” they teach. They can’t get out of their own way, so obsessed with being and feeling right and righteous. They don’t realize they too could be included in Jesus’ gift of mercy and grace, if they would let go and see themselves as needing it.

Jesus invites to himself all whom the World has left feeling like burned out husks of themselves. You’ve tried the world’s way of do and do and do, prove and prove and prove, achieve and achieve and achieve, and you are left being a hamster on a wheel—slowly dying as you run as fast as you can just to stay in place. You identify too closely with those mentioned in the Beatitudes: hopeless, grieving, meek, hungry and thirsty, harassed, insulted. To you he says, “Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (v. 29-30, The Message) He invites you to allow him to take your burdens from your shoulders and then put on his yoke of grace and mercy.

Jesus doesn’t free us into a pollyannish existence where anything goes but saves us into the life that truly and deeply matters. Saying “yes” to Jesus does mean saying “no” to something else—to yourself. Instead of the burden of making it for yourself, the author of existence invites us to rest in what he has already done for us. As Luther wrote: “The law says, ‘do this,’ and it is never done. Grace says, ‘believe in this,’ and everything is already done.”

Jesus invites us to die to ourselves and be reborn in the Kingdom of grace and mercy. He calls us to believe in his good work and then prepares good works for us to do too. He gives us the rest of purpose and mattering, defeating sin and death and then reordering our lives around gift and sacrifice. By the power of the Cross, his death and resurrection, this is not an ideal or goal or vision to live up to. No, it is a reality we live in to.

One of the ways I see this lived out well is through the works and life of author and poet Wendell Berry. He’s one of my favorites. He’s also a farmer in Kentucky dedicated to the “old” ways of cultivation. A man of deep faith, Berry takes his yoke of the Jesus way gift and purpose seriously. Part of that means he takes the Sabbath seriously. He does not work on Sundays. He rests. To be sure, the chores needing to be done around the farm do indeed get done, and he does make the trek to church, but he’s decidedly committed to no hustling and striving and doing.

No, on those days he restfully walks his land, taking in the gift of life. Sometimes, lots of times, he writes poems. I’ll close with one that I think fits what Jesus is trying to say in today’s scripture. It’s called “The Peace of Wild Things:”

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.[2]

[1] “The New Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus

[2] “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry

They said it was successful, but she couldn’t tell.

All she knew was that trying to sit up would send her under—don’t even think about standing. She couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom, watch tv, or even eat. At thirty years old, she was supposed to be in the prime of her life, but now, in that moment, she was basically helpless.

And the hardest thing was that there was nothing she could do about it.

But then in walked her mom.

This woman shared with me how she remembers her mom coming to sit by her and take care of her in the hospital. The real memory, the one that still is vibrant these decades later, is of her mom sitting by her bedside and feeding her the hospital pudding because she couldn’t do it herself.

Thirty years old, and her mom was still taking care of her—it felt like a cup of cold water on a hot day.

When reading our short gospel lesson, you might be tempted to think it’s about rewards.

I mean, Jesus does say “reward” three times in three verses, so it’s right there. And plus, we like to hear about rewards and being rewarded; it’s natural to go there. We want there to be a payoff for the things we do.

It’s why we sign up for certain credit cards—the points are a type of reward. All those miles run? I deserve a little treat. All that mowing done in the heat and humidity? Why not have a beer? All those hours put in on the job? Why shouldn’t I get a good Christmas bonus—at least that’s what Clark Griswold thought when instead of a 20K bonus he got a “Jelly of the Month” Club membership; some reward…

Is it any surprise we treat faith the same way?

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We want God to count up all the good things we do—the money given, the prayers offered, the curses withheld, the Bible verses read, the kids mentored, the meetings suffered, the casseroles baked, the communion shared—and then either give us some extra golden stars on our heavenly crown or at least manufacture our lives in the exact way we hope and want.

We do the hard and faithful work; shouldn’t we be rewarded with good health, a happy family, perfect weather, a full bank account, and endless fulfillment in life?

I’m holding my end of the bargain, shouldn’t God give me what I want?

However, Jesus doesn’t say what the rewards actually are.

He says the word three times but never gets around to telling us what’s behind door number three. If he wanted us to focus on just earning points for our heavenly account, one would think he would be a little bit more clear on what’s on the backend—what’s the heavenly equivalent of a “Jelly of the Month” Club membership? I kind of want to know.

As much as our curious minds wander, Jesus’ focus isn’t on rewards but on grace.

At the end of a long speech getting his followers ready to continue his ministry in the world, he’s preparing them for the reciprocal nature of grace.

He’s already spent time teaching them how they are to go out in the world: minimal supplies so as to rely on the hospitality of the world. He gave them advice about what to do when the resulting negative pressure would happen: rely on the Holy Spirit to provide the words. He even tried to get them to see God’s care amid suffering and pain and heartache: you are worth more to God than the sparrows whom God knows intimately.

And now he turns to those who would welcome them, welcome his followers, welcome the people he discipled, welcome the ones he sent out to continue his ministry of sharing the good news in words and deeds.

People were bound to show hospitality, right? When you receive a gift, a real gift, one that is unexpected, unwarranted, unmerited, you want to return the favor. You want to give back. You want to help.

It’s natural because you feel like you’re indebted to the person. That’s the nature of grace—it doesn’t return empty-handed.

The gospel is reciprocal: it goes out with forgiveness and comes back with new life. It goes out and comes back again and again and again.

When we know and trust and believe that Jesus died for our forgiveness and was raised for our justification, we can’t help but respond to that merciful gift with more mercy.

We love because God first loved us, but what happens when someone responds to that love with more of it?

It’s unfaithful to put ourselves only in the helping, serving, gracing position. If we view ourselves only as the giver of God’s love, then we just have a savior complex.

We take Jesus’ place instead of being his disciples.

Receiving metaphorical cups of water—it basically means doing maybe the bare minimum one person can do for another—helps train us for receiving God’s grace because it puts us in a position that is often a place no one really wants to be: a humble receiver.

Receiving the love and care and service of others helps train us to receive God’s love too.

If you think you are too big, too important, too self-empowered to let others help you, how can you be ready for God’s action in your life?

Grace is reciprocal—we are able to offer it to others when we are able to receive it from others.

If you don’t, then you’re just using them for your own purposes.

When was the last time you received a cup of cold water—a seemingly small gift of grace that actually meant a whole lot more?

Let me tell you one for me.

I was working at a different church. A country church up near Mexico.

Hannah was pregnant with Abby, and our house needed some updates to get ready for the baby. I took care of getting the nursery ready, but one of my church members, Lonnie, found out there was a banister problem.

You see, my house is a split foyer. When you walk through the front door, you either go up or down. On the top floor there was a banister, but the balusters were way too far apart. A baby could have crawled right through with nothing blocking its way.

Lonnie took it upon himself to fix that problem.

One day he showed up with a couple of Mennonite guys and they tore the old banister out and put in a brand new one—one that would actually keep Abby from falling down.

The newel post, the handrail, the balusters, even the cap on the wall—installed in one day.

All I had to do was stay out of the way and before you know it, I had brand new railing to keep my family safe.

Could I have done it myself?

Sure. Probably. Maybe.

Would it have been as good?

Not in the slightest, nor would I have done it in one day. I probably would have had to go to Lowe’s like 10 times.

But Lonnie wanted to do it for me, offer me grace, so I let him.

It was small in the grand scheme of things, but it meant a lot to me and still does. It felt like a cup of cold water on a hot day—and I know, because of Christ, Lonnie will receive his reward, whatever Jesus decides it will be.

Sarah saw Hagar’s son laughing, the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham. ¹⁰ So she said to Abraham, “Send this servant away with her son! This servant’s son won’t share the inheritance with my son Isaac.” (Gen 21:9-10)

I like to imagine it’s a backyard grill out with hamburgers, hot dogs, and brats. Some people are playing cornhole, others are lounging in chairs, and the kids are off playing with bubbles, water guns, and whatever else they can get their hands on. With her red solo cup in hand, Sarah takes in the scene, happy this day has come.

But then her eyes pan to Ishmael, that adolescent who caused her so much heartache.

Her eyes narrow because he’s living it up, mixing it up, making that transition from the kids’ table to the adult conversation. He’s enjoying himself, laughing even—another reminder of his presence that supersedes her son’s.

Ishmael is “isaacing,” taking the place of her son, the promised one, the one through whom the world is supposed to be blessed, and more importantly—the one who is supposed to take care of her!

She can’t have this, so she goes again to Abraham, telling him to send Hagar and her son away. Get rid of them because Isaac deserves it all, not Ishmael.

She goes overboard—an overreaction to the reminder of her “less-than”ness. She doesn’t care where they go, what they do, or what happens to them; she just wants the living reminder of her past failures gone.

“This is not the behavior you want to see in a key character in God’s salvation history. This is not the loving family of the Waltons from the 1970s TV show The Waltons. This is more like the cut-throat dysfunction of the Ewing family from the 1980s TV show Dallas.”

Only when God says it’s going to be okay does Abraham go along with it.

He didn’t want to because Ishmael is his son just like Isaac. He doesn’t want hurt to befall Ishmael. But God says it’s okay. Do what Sarah says because Isaac is to be the heir. Ishmael will be taken care of and become the ancestor of a great people too.

Genuinely distraught into inaction, Abraham gives in when God expresses care for Ishmael and Hagar.

And God eventually does.

The story ramps up the tension as it goes along. The solemn scene of Abraham loading Hagar up with minimal provisions. The look back in the distance I’m sure Hagar made. The desert wandering. The water running out.

The grief palpable as she moves away and covers her ears to escape the pain of seeing and hearing her son’s death throes.

It builds and builds because she’s at the end of her rope. She’s done all she could and it wasn’t enough. You know that feeling…when all you effort comes for naught? That’s where she’s at.

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We know God has said they are going to be taken care of, but we wonder…

It’s like reading a book in a series you’re late to—if you started reading Harry Potter now, you know he’s going to survive the attacks of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named until at least the very last book. He has to or the books would stop.

You know God is going to show up, but that doesn’t stop us from holding our breath until God finally does.

They wander far, but never out of God’s sight.

God sees her and knows her. He calls her by name.

How important is it to remember someone’s name?

When someone remembers your name, you feel valued.

God knows and values Hagar.

God has seen Hagar again and heard her and her son’s cries. This unwanted slave cast out woman. This hated son. This forgotten heir.

God sees and hears and knows.

It’s important to remember that no matter how forgotten, brutalized, and hated you might be…you are never beyond God’s sight and hearing and care.

It’s why Jesus told his disciples,

“Aren’t two sparrows sold for a small coin? But not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father knowing about it already. Even the hairs of your head are all counted. Don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:29-31)

The story ends with God opening Hagar’s eyes to see a well nearby, giving her and her son what they need to continue surviving.

God acts and helps her see what’s nearby. It isn’t flashy or obvious or impressive. God simply acts to help her see what is already around her.

Hagar needed help from the outside—someone foreign to save her.

And that’s just what God did because it’s what God does.

I feel like I need to break the tension a little bit.

Called worse names than the king of the demons? Fear the one who can kill the body and soul? People being denied by Jesus in heaven? Family members becoming enemies?

I’m sure you could cut the tension where Jesus was teaching with a knife.

I thought Jesus was the one who Cyndi Lauper imagined herself to be:

If you’re lost you can look and you will find me, time after time.
If you fall, I will catch you, I’ll be waiting, time after time.

Jesus didn’t sound like that today.

Is this really the same Jesus who promised happiness in the Kingdom for those who are hopeless, grieving, humble, hungry and thirsty, merciful, pure-hearted, peacemakers, and insulted? The same Jesus who commended the faith of a Roman military leader who wanted Jesus to heal his son? The same Jesus who ate and drank with sinners and tax collectors—you know, people no one likes?

Those were challenging teachings and actions too. No one wants to be hopeless, no one really wants an oppressor to be commended, and no one wants people we’ve excluded to be included. But we can see Jesus’ reasoning, if we squint hard enough.

People in places no one would want to be will be blessed by the God who sees and loves them. A man at the end of his rope moves with humility and admits Jesus’ authority. Welcoming outsiders because no one else would.

Yeah, those sound like “Jesus” things.

But today’s reading has me quoting The Black Eyed Peas:

Where is the love?

The fact of the matter is Jesus is okay with making us uncomfortable. He’s not afraid of ruffling the feathers of people, including those closest to him.

This isn’t the first time Jesus has done this either.

After he blessed all those groups of people, he said anger was the same as murder and that you have to love your enemies and pray for those who harass you.

After he heard the Roman military leader’s faith, Jesus criticized all of his countrymen’s faith.

After he sat down to dinner with sinners and tax collectors, he told his critics to go back and study their Bible.

We shouldn’t really be surprised Jesus is giving uncomfortable truths to his disciples. He’s sending them out to continue his work—sharing the Good News and showing what it means—but he wants them to be ready.

It might be uncomfortable, but Jesus wants us to know that following him isn’t all sunshine and roses. It might bring heartache and pain—it did for him.

And one of the places where our faith might cause trouble is in our family.

Jesus doesn’t seem to care all that much about “family values” in our Scripture for today.

His famous words—

“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matt. 10:34)

—aren’t about stirring up modern-day crusades or justifying violence in his name.

No, he’s talking about the sword of division.

He knows that his Kingdom way is divisive because it goes against the grain of the world. The world—all families included—will be divided in how it responds to Jesus and his ministry that culminates in death and resurrection.

We think family is important now, and it is, but it was just as important—if not more important—back then.

Families functioned as little worlds unto themselves, serving as the main source of support and identity. The locus of economic activity was the family. Jobs, trades, and farms were family affairs. Land wasn’t sold to the highest bidder like today but passed down through generations.

Your family heritage was how people identified who you were—kind of like following your older brother into school and every teacher knowing you as “Kirk’s younger brother,” and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

So to be divided from your family—father against son, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law—was to be divided from your ability to survive. It meant being cut off from what originally made you, well, you.

It probably would have felt like a sword had plunged deep into your core.

Certainly it wouldn’t have felt peaceful. You might even have felt at war with yourself.

Happy Father’s Day, right?

And the reality is, this is exactly what happened in Matthew’s context.

The people first hearing Jesus say these things—some of them would have been kicked out of their homes because they cared more about love than purity.

They would have been cut off because they refused to participate in a hypocritical and oppressive economic system.

They would have been shunned because they became friends with and ate alongside the untouchables.

Matthew made sure to include this saying because it touched the reality of his people.

Jesus knew it would happen. He said it would happen. So it isn’t surprising.

Even Jesus’ own family thought he was off his rocker at times, see Mark 3:21.

Not all pain felt, suffering received, or heartache endured as a result of following Jesus is physical. Some of it—maybe the deepest wounds—is emotional.

Who has the power to cut you deeper than your family?

But, as Jesus often does, he tucks his main point at the very end.

Discipleship has costs. It just does.

Being Christian changes things. Following Jesus is more than rearranging the deck chairs as the ship is sinking.

There are real demands and consequences to our faith.

Saying “yes” to Jesus—yes to the gospel, yes to his forgiveness of sin, and yes to the new life he gives by his death and resurrection—means saying “no” to other things.

Saying yes to grace, yes to mercy, yes to love. Means no to hate.

No to silence.

No to the status quo.

No to safety.

There are demands. So he has been preaching Law to bring us to the end of ourselves.

He’s exposing how we try to “find” our lives, bringing up the ways we protect ourselves by preserving our status, dignity, and reputation. Instead of being life preservers, they become the stones that pull us under.

In trying to save ourselves, we sink faster and faster.

“Those who find their lives will lose them.” (v.39a)

All your attempts at self-preservation won’t work—not even a family as strong as Dom Toretto’s in The Fast and the Furious will stop the wages of Sin from finding you.

But Jesus ends not with Law, but with Gospel.

He doesn’t end with a command, but with a promise.

He doesn’t bind but frees us to a way of living that brings true life:

“Those who lose their lives because of me will find them.” (v. 39b)

He’s been building the Law higher and higher so he can catch us when we fall.

To lose your life could mean martyrdom. It certainly did for some in Matthew’s time.

But it need not be.

Losing your life for Jesus means letting go of all the ways you try to control it. All the hopes and dreams you’ve built your life around. All the little idols that demand your loyalty and attention.

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It means letting them die.

Let them go and discover that you are held in the hands of the One who knows every hair on your head—even if there are fewer than last year. We need not be afraid.

Jesus can’t seem to help himself. Try as he might to sound stern and authoritative, he can’t help but speak grace. In him we find our lives at the precise moment we lose them.

The moments of our deepest pain, heartache, and suffering are often the exact moments when Jesus is most present, working to resurrect us into the new life he already has.

If we have been united together in a death like his, we will also be united together in a resurrection like his.
—Romans 6:5

And he will do it time after time.

Back in 2019, Stephen Colbert sat down with Anderson Cooper for an interview. It was just in the aftermath of Cooper’s mother’s death, so grief was on the mind.

As happens, that sorrowful event stirred up other old losses—both men lost their fathers when they were young. They talked about the great effect that had in life: changing how they interacted with other kids, diving head long into scary things so fear itself would be deadened, and how “status” lost its importance to the point of not worrying about being embarrassed when you sing loudly in an elevator (of course, that was Colbert).

The conversation took its twists and turns: raising their mothers was mentioned, Gandalf made an appearance, and Cooper even admitted he wants a “Bond villain” so people would see the hurt loss has rendered upon him.

However, the most poignant moment came when Cooper brought up an answer Colbert gave to another interviewer. “You told an interviewer that you have learned, in your words, Love the thing that I most wish had not happened. You went on to say, ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’” Do you really believe that?”

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Colbert responded by saying, “Yes. It’s a gift to exist. It’s a gift to exist and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that…I didn’t learn it, that I was most grateful for the thing I most wish didn’t happen, it’s I realized it…I want it to have not happened, but if you’re grateful for your life…then you have to be grateful for all of it…

At a young age, I suffered something so that by the time I was in serious relationships in my life with friends or with my wife or with my children, is that I had some understanding that everybody is suffering. And however, imperfectly acknowledge their suffering and connect with them and to love them in a deep way that makes you grateful for the fact that you have suffered so that you can know that about other people.”

When I was 19, I lost my grandpa, Pa Walt. He didn’t die, but suffered a life-altering stroke. Once a strong, proud, stubborn, thick-headed, warm, patient, and thoughtful man, he was never the same. He had a brain injury that irrevocably changed his personality and persona—he was Walt, but he wasn’t the Walt I grew up learning from, working for, and loving together.

He had to give up his construction business where he taught his grandsons the value of work. He had to give up his traveling where he got to explore with the woman he’d loved. He had to give up his garden which he tended and grew with love, sharing the spoils wide and far.

The life he knew was as good as dead.

The man that I knew was as good as dead.

He was quicker to cut off and hold a grudge, more prone to fits of anger, his memories were circumspect at best, conspiracy theories came more easily, and a once proud independent man resented his need for others to help him. He could hold it together when he wanted to, at my wedding, he acted graciously to the family members he hadn’t spoken to in years, but most of the time he didn’t want to or couldn’t.

That event was a turning point, a hinge, a line of demarcation in my life. I consciously knew him for about 16 years before and after that fateful night we saw him suffer the stroke. There was Walt before and there was Walt after, and they weren’t the same.

I can point to the moment I knew it would be like this.

Walt suffered his stroke during my Christmas break from college. I was off for a month when everyone else either had to go back to work or school. This meant I had time to sit and be with him as he tried to recover in the hospital.

While I was sitting with him, Walt experienced seizure after seizure. In the aftermath of his stroke, we learned that he had seizures as a child but they eventually went away as he grew—they came back with a vengeance either before or after the stroke. We don’t really know.

When Walt had the first seizure his face contorted itself as it eventually always would. I never got used to the mix of anger and fear his face would betray. I was a furrowed brow and tight lipped rage combined with eyes filled to brim with tears of terror.

I can still see it now.

Anger at what had beset him. Fear that he wouldn’t get to do what he loved anymore.

And that anger and fear never went away. He was always angry at God, the universe, or the aliens for taking all he new in life away from him. He was fearful that his life wouldn’t be the same.

He was right to be afraid and mad—except there was no one to blame.

When bad things happen, afflictions find us, and suffering is heaped on our shoulders, we want to blame someone. We want to find something to focus all our negative feelings at so they don’t eat us alive from the inside out.

And in the search for someone or something to blame he turned outward, focusing his rage and sadness on those closest to him. I found out when he died it had been over a decade since my cousins had talked to him. Only my mom could talk to him out of his step-children.

There is no way his affliction produced endurance which produced character which produced hope, at least not for him. Not even close.

But it did for me.

Don’t get me wrong. I wish it didn’t happen.

I wish my wife had gotten the chance to meet Walt before the stroke. I wish my girls would have been able to ride in his truck, laugh at his (dirty) jokes, and curl up in his burly arms when he showed them a movie that was definitely WAY to mature for their ages. I wish, selfishly, he would have been able to come down to Missouri and reteach me how to repair and refresh my house.

Oh, how I wish.

Even in spite of my wishes, I am grateful. I’m grateful especially that I was with him in the hospital.

The affliction of walking with him through it allowed me to endure his fits and frustrations with endurance. Enduring his anger and fear produced a character more able to see the sufferings of others. Suffering with him reminded me of the hope that we aren’t alone in our despair.

It’s as The Oh Hellos sing in “I Have Made Mistakes”:

“We have lived in fear, we have lived in fear and our fear has betrayed us
We will overcome, we will overcome the apathy that has made us
Cause we are not alone, we are not alone in the dark with our demons
We have made mistakes, we have made mistakes, but we've learned from them

And the sun, it does not cause us, the sun, it does not cause us to grow
It is the rain that will strengthen, the rain that will strengthen your soul…”

I still wish Walt’s stroke never happened.

But I understand what Colbert meant.

I won’t love the stroke. I won’t call it good. And I won’t thank God for it.

We call a thing what it is.

But I am grateful for what it produced in me, because its rain strengthened something in my soul that all the sunshine and roses never could.

It made me a better pastor: choosing to enter into another’s suffering, practicing patience and compassion for those who are angry and fearful because they no longer have control, and exercising hope against hope.

Not hope that suffering, affliction, or trouble won’t come, but hope that, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the worst word will never be the last word.

And remember: hope does not disappoint.

Jesus seems to be channeling his inner Willie Nelson today, “On the road again.I just can’t wait to get on the road again. The life I love is making music with my friends. And I can’t wait to get on the road again.[1]” Jesus can’t wait to get back out on the road, except the life Jesus loves isn’t making music with his friends but sharing the good news in word and deed.

Matthew seems to have plagiarized himself a little bit because, although it sounds like it, that’s not from our gospel reading today. That verse was from 5 chapters before in Chapter 4 verse 23. That was before he gave the definitive interpretation of God’s Law in the Sermon on the Mount, before he served as an urgent care for a man with leprosy, before healed a military leader’s paralyzed servant, before freed two men of demons, before he forgave the sins and healed a man’s broken back, before he called Matthew the tax collector, before he stopped the 12-year hemorrhage, before he raised the girl from the dead, and before he restored vision to two blind men and voice to another. Our scripture reading from Matthew today acts as a sort of bookend, looking back and interpreting what just happened.

For 5 chapters Jesus taught and showed what the Kingdom of God is like. Like the trailers before the main event, he gave those whom he encountered and those who sought him out a taste of life within the Good Shepherd’s Kingdom. They had no need for movies like “Heaven is For Real,” because he embodied the prayer he gave us, he made it on earth as it is in heaven—at least for a while.

Each teaching and healing and miracle is a little enactment of these words from Revelation: God’s dwelling is here with humankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples. God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying, or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Rev. 21:3b-4)

But in all Jesus’ travels around bringing the kingdom to the people, he’s noticed a particular problem beyond the obvious physical, emotional, and spiritual maladies that Sin and Death inflict upon us. He’s noticed that the people are, as our translation puts it, troubled and helpless. (Matt. 9:36) No one likes to feel helpless, where you are the fish in a barrel. But that’s not the only way it could be or should be translated because it could lead you to think they’re just feeling something. But no, something is being done to them.

The people were, as one translator puts it, “in distress and cast down.[2]” That kicks things up a notch as someone is having to do the casting, but it still doesn’t evoke the sheer violence. Here’s still a third way, a “brutally honest” way, to name what’s going with the people: they are “flayed and thrown down in the dirt.[3]”

So, when Jesus says they are like sheep without a shepherd, it’s not just that they wander around to and fro dangerously close to falling over a cliff. No, what’s lamentable is that they are not guarded, they are not protected, they are not safe, and so they are being torn asunder.

There’s a leadership vacuum—the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few, to use another metaphor. There’s a dearth of people willing to be selfless, to step into the void, and forsake themselves for the good of others. No, instead of that, the people Jesus encountered along the way were bearing the brunt of the empire’s leadership flaying them open and throwing them down in the dirt manifesting in physical, emotional, and spiritual maladies.

And Jesus feels what we all feel when we encounter someone suffering through no fault of their own—compassion: he had compassion on them because they were troubled and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (Matt. 9:36) He sees them in their trouble, helplessness, and distress and then he acts. His stomach turns over and he does something about it. That’s what compassion is, a feeling of unsettledness deep within your core that moves you, like really moves you.

But compassion without action is just pity. Pity is that feeling you get when the infomercials come on your TV filled with videos of children with cleft palates, abused animals, and hurricane victims—you feel bad, but you change the channel as fast as you can. You feel something, but then that feeling is quickly forgotten, stuffed down, or drowned out. You see the plight of others, how the world is flaying them open and throwing them down in the dirt and you move on with excuses of the world’s problems being too big, them having broken a law, or you don’t have the time and money, or whatever you use to anesthetize yourself from feeling sorrowful for somebody else.

Compassion involves action. Compassion ends someplace different than where it starts. It’s feeling that feeling of heartache at the plight of others and then doing something about it—meeting the need, raising awareness, providing comfort, fixing the problem. It’s why our denomination’s relief, refugee, and development ministry is named Week of Compassion—because they work to help people move from a place of suffering to wholeness.

Jesus has compassion for the people and acts, calling the 12 Apostles. He calls them, Matthew makes sure to remind us their names, tells them to pray, and then sends them out as the answers to their own prayers. Notice that sometimes God turns our prayers back on us, making us fulfill what we ask God to take care for us. God isn’t a vending machine—doling out specifically what we want if we do the right things and ask in the right way. No, sometimes God sends us to make happen what we pray for.

But being sent is what actually makes the 12 “apostles” —disciples learn and follow while apostles are sent out. These 12 are called and sent out to go to those closest to them, those sheep who have lost their way, those who have fallen prey to the wolves of the world, those who Sin and Death have been flayed and thrown in the dirt. They are sent out to their compatriots and continue what Jesus started.

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I think Eugene Peterson’s The Message says it well: Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously. (6-8a)

Go and share the good news that the Kingdom of Heaven is near because Jesus is with them and then show them what that means. They are to give people a taste of Eden, to remind them of what life is supposed to be like, to treat the symptoms of Sin while Jesus will go and deal with the root cause on the Cross. Grounded in Jesus’ compassion for a broken and hurting world, Christ sends his Church out to share his Good News in word and deed with those who are closest to them.

Let me give you an illustration and then I’m through. When 2025 turned into 2026, thousands of residents in Western Pennsylvania got a letter letting them know their medical debt had been forgiven. 117 Presbyterian Churches combined to raise more than $75,000 dollars partnering with the non-profit Undue Medical Debt to purchase more than 14 million dollars of medical debt.

“Undue Medical Debt purchases medical debts belonging to those least able to pay from health care providers and other organizations for pennies on the dollar, meaning every one dollar donated erases $100 or more of medical debt. But unlike commercial bill collectors, the group doesn’t badger people to pay off the debt themselves.[4]” It finds people and groups of people, like those Presbyterian churches, to give money to eliminate the debt, wiping it clean so those in debt can have a fresh start. In case you were wondering, I looked it up: in Callaway County 3200+ people average $1,200 of medical debt.[5]

Can you imagine what it would feel like to have that burden of debt lifted from your shoulders, never having to worry about it again. It might feel little bit like heaven, if only for a moment.

[1] Willie Nelson, “On the Road Again.”

[2] David Bentley Hart, The New Testament: A Translation, p. 17

[3]

Notes from DeHart

He Stopped

They were not looking for him. They were just there. Crowds moving through the towns of Galilee, carrying the ordinary weight of the morning. No particular crisis. Just the pressure of living without anyone tending you. The shepherds of Israel had their rules and their titles. What they did not have was time for the people standing in front of them…

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3 months ago · 13 likes · The Rev. Ben DeHart

[4] https://pcusa.org/news-storytelling/news/2025/12/18/presbyterians-pittsburgh-presbytery-erase-14-million-families-medical-debts

[5] https://apps.urban.org/features/debt-interactive-map/?type=medical&variable=medcoll&state=29&county=29027