Jazzmancf's Blog

August 16, 2026

Matthew 15:21-28

          I am a dog person.  I had dachshunds growing up… three of them.  But I haven’t had a dog in quite a few years.  So, I was delighted when my girlfriend rescued a dog.  Her dog’s name is Daisy and she’s a Maltese-Poodle mix.  She’s about 8 years old and is one of the friendliest dogs I have ever met.  When I take her for walks, which is fairly often, if she sees another person ANYWHERE, she is pulling on that leash with all of her might trying to go and see that person.  It doesn’t matter if we know them or not, Daisy just always wants to make new friends.  Daisy is also a foodie, which fits right in with my girlfriend’s family.  If we put her dog food down before we sit down to have dinner, she will never touch it until after we eat, because while we are eating, Daisy will be sitting and begging at the table because, of course, she much prefers people food.  If she is begging and she is ignored, she will occasionally woof at us to get our attention.  You know, just to remind us that she is patiently waiting for whatever we may choose to give her or whatever may fall from the table.  And yes, we both realize that we are not supposed to feed her from the table, but you know… she’s just so darn cute!  Only after we have finished the meal and cleared the table will she finally go to her dish and eat her dog food.  She’s a smart girl!

          In first century Palestine, dogs did not have the same reputation that they have nowadays.  There were packs of wild dogs who aggressively stole food from people at every opportunity and were generally a nuisance.  But when Jesus uses the word “dog” in today’s lesson he doesn’t use the word that the ancients used to describe these troublesome wild dogs.  He used a diminutive; a word that might better be translated as “puppy”.  It was a word that was used to describe a beloved house pet.

          Now, as we read today’s genuinely difficult passage, we realize that Jesus’ using the word “puppy” instead of “dog” really didn’t soften how insulting His statement was to this Canaanite woman.  And frankly, His treatment of this woman is not at all what we have come to expect from Jesus.  But we really need to look at this in its first century context.  Saunders says, “Matthew reminds us here that God is first of all faithful to the promises made to Israel, which in turn is to bear witness to the nations of God’s faithfulness and redemptive power. At the end of the Gospel, when Jesus’ death and resurrection have brought the divine plan for Israel’s redemption to fruition, Jesus will extend the disciples’ mission to all the nations.  But not yet. Here Jesus will not be swayed—at least not easily—from his appointed calling. Jesus’ response to the woman thus tells us more about the nature of his mission and his faithfulness to it than about his feelings toward women or Gentiles.”  [1]

And so with that in mind, let’s dig into today’s story.  Jesus has just finished having a confrontation with a delegation of priests and scribes from Jerusalem.  And the previous chapter of Matthew had just told us that Jesus is in Gennesaret, which is about 75 miles from Jerusalem, so this delegation from Jerusalem has come quite a distance on foot to have this discussion with Jesus.  The discussion didn’t go particularly well, and we will talk a bit more about that later, but the end result of the discussion is that Jesus did a pretty thorough job of offending this delegation of Jewish authorities.      

Our story tells us that after this conversation Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.  Scott Hoezee describes Tyre and Sidon saying, “To most of Matthew’s original readers that was the equivalent of saying that Jesus had now entered Paganland.  He was outside of any recognizably religious area and had entered a kind of spiritual slum, a veritable ghetto of unbelief. This was the kind of place “good” folks did not visit.  [2]  Tyre and Sidon were also outside of the area governed by Herod and so, what Jesus was doing here was most likely avoiding further conflict with the Jewish and the Roman authorities because His time for a full confrontation with them had not yet come.  .

As they enter Tyre and Sidon, a woman approaches Jesus loudly asking Him to heal her daughter, who was possessed by a demon.  And this woman is a Gentile, but she is not just any Gentile.  In Luke’s parallel account of this story Luke identifies her as being Syrophoenician but Matthew, writing primarily to Jewish Christians, identifies her as a Canaanite.  Both of these descriptions are correct; Luke is describing where the woman is from but Matthew is identifying her bloodline.  And this matters, because the Canaanites and the Israelites have been enemies for centuries and her being a Canaanite just presents another additional barrier to the relationship between the woman and Jesus. 

And so now, contrary to pretty much everything that we would expect from Jesus, Jesus ignored her… completely.  The disciples, annoyed by her loudness and her persistence, asked Jesus to send her away.  The Greek text makes it clear that it was to the disciples, and not the woman, that Jesus said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”  Whether the woman hears this or not, we don’t know.  But regardless, it does not interfere with the persistence of her requests.  And things are about to get worse. 

This woman kneels before Jesus, adopting an attitude of worship and respect, and after calling Him the Son of David, she said, “Lord, help me!”  In spite of the fact that this woman is a Gentile, she has identified Jesus first as the Son of David, recognizing Him as the Jewish Messiah, then, she called Him Lord.  This woman clearly believes in Jesus’ authority and in His ability to heal her daughter.  Unfortunately for her, this is still not enough, because Jesus replies to her, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

I think it’s fair to say that Jesus’ treatment of this woman is puzzling to modern Christians, and in fact, commentators over the last few centuries have put forth many, and widely varying, explanations as to why Jesus responded to this woman in this way.  And as much as I hate to admit it… I’m not going to be able to explain this for y’all either.  This same Jesus who used a despised Samaritan as the example of the neighbor who we are called to love, has appeared to completely reject this Canaanite woman. 

Now, to the first century reader of Matthew’s Gospel, this may not have raised many eyebrows.  The Jewish practice of exclusivity… the dividing of people into clean and unclean, would have rendered Jesus’ response to this woman to be perfectly normal and reasonable.  But, in this century, we expect more compassion from Jesus than what we are seeing here.  However, in spite of my not being able to resolve the apparent dichotomy of how Jesus’ actions here just don’t fit with the loving and inclusive response that we would normally have expected from Him, I believe that Matthew included this story here, at this exact spot in his Gospel, for a very good reason.

You see, in that conversation that we spoke about earlier that Jesus had had with the Jewish authorities, Jesus was teaching a really important lesson about cleanliness and uncleanliness.  The Jewish authorities began this discussion by asking Jesus why His disciples didn’t wash their hands before eating.  And this question was not about hygiene.  The word the Pharisees used was νίπτο (neep-toe) and this word doesn’t so much mean washing as it means anointing, νίπτο describes a ceremonial washing of the hands.  Originally, the Bible commanded only priests to ceremonially wash their hands before meals, but the oral teaching of the Pharisees took this rule and applied it to every observant Jew. 

Jesus responded to their question rather obliquely by taking issue with the common Jewish practice of Corban.  This was a vow that one made to bequeath their wealth to God.  But this was actually a really slick maneuver because you still had the use of your resources while you were alive, but you were prohibited from giving away any of it that you didn’t use yourself… most notably not giving to elderly parents who may have been relying on you for their care.  Jesus points this out as a clear violation of the commandment to honor one’s father and mother; a commandment which, by the way, mandated financial support of elderly parents. 

Jesus then summarizes this argument for His disciples by stating that “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”  The Pharisees were so concerned about the ceremonial washing but were neglecting the important things in life like seeing to the care of one’s parents in their old age.  Allan Bevere says, “Jesus always emphasizes the need for something more than appearances. In the Sermon on the Mount, he states that anger is the root of murder, lust is the root of adultery and love extends to one’s enemies. God’s kingdom is not so much concerned with appearances and looking holy in practice, but with the person’s inner life from which the actions emerge.”  [3]

Our Canaanite friend answered Jesus’ comment about not giving the children’s food to the dogs by stating that even the family dog gets to eat food that is dropped (purposely or otherwise) from the table.  Surprisingly, rather than be insulted, the woman accepted her place outside of God’s promises to Israel, but she also recognized the fact that there is plenty of God’s love and provision left over, even after God has fulfilled His promises to Israel.  Carla Works says, “Her statement is striking.  She places hope in what others have discarded.  This Son of David has so much power that there is enough power for the house of Israel and more than enough left over for her.  She is not trying to thwart his mission.  She just wants a crumb, recognizing that even a crumb is powerful enough to defeat the demon that has possessed her daughter.”  [4]  And after she said this, Jesus praised the woman for her great faith, and He tells her that He has just healed her daughter.

And in looking at these two stories side by side, the one of the Pharisees and the one of the Canaanite woman, we can see how Jesus was using this contrast of clean vs. unclean to teach the disciples a lesson.  By all accounts, this woman was unclean… a Gentile, an enemy of Israel, not an heir of God’s promises to Israel, and yet she recognizes Jesus as messiah, she is respectful and reverent, she believes that Jesus can heal her daughter, and she is humble; not at all put off by Jesus insultingly calling her a dog.  In short, she shows exactly the kind of gentle and faithful spirit that comes from a heart that is aligned with God’s heart.  Here, she becomes a contrast to the Pharisees, who though they were ostentatiously clean, were obsessed with appearances and were not actually living their faith. 

The disciples were ready for Jesus to tell this woman to take a hike.  They were annoyed by her persistence and her plaintive approach and just wanted her gone.  Jesus needed to show the disciples that the Pharisees who were ritually “clean” were actually far from the kingdom of God, and that this woman who was an outsider, unclean, and the child of enemies of Israel, was exactly the kind of person that God is looking for.  And so, Jesus saw and responded to her great faith.  And sent a message to the disciples… and to us, that what appears to be “clean” isn’t always… and what appears to be unclean, may be exactly the person whose heart looks like God’s heart. 

Scott Hoezee says, “Matthew wants us to see that even though we may think we know exactly what (and who) needs to come first in our ministries, the main thing is to remain open to the people God sends our way.  We, too, may think that when it comes to “first things first,” taking care of in-house folks has a higher profile than reaching out to the community.  But if we, like the Lord Jesus, are going to be open to God’s Spirit, then we need to be willing to change everything if that’s what it takes to be loving toward everyone we meet.”  [5]

And so, in today’s lesson we need to get past the appearances of Jesus being rude or dismissive to our Canaanite friend and we need to understand the fact that she has helped Jesus teach the lesson that in God’s kingdom appearances count for nothing, and that those who are called by God are those who have allowed Him to create within themselves a heart that looks like God’s heart.

Who are we turning away from today?  Who are we assuming to be unclean? Or unworthy? Who are the inhabitants of Paganland that God is sending our way?  If God didn’t send His Son to condemn the world, and if we are called to be Christ-like, then we are not being sent to condemn the world either.  But instead, we are being sent so that the world should be saved by Jesus… through us.  That idea of God working miracles through us has been a common theme over the last few weeks.  And so, my dear friends, let us let God work those miracles through us!  Let us always be gracious.  Let us not be fooled by appearances but let us accept with love all who God puts in our path.  Let us allow God’s miracles to work through us as we work to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth. 

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[1] Stanley P. Saunders, Preaching the Gospel of Matthew: Proclaiming God’s Presence, Pg. 135

[2] Scott Hoezee, CEPreaching.org, Commentary on Matthew 15:10-20, 21-28

[3] Allan Bevere, PreachersLectionaryNotebook.substack.com, From Clean Hands to Clean Hearts

[4] Carla Works, WorkingPreacher.org, Commentary on Matthew 15:10-20, 21-28-5

[5] Scott Hoezee, CEPreaching.org, Commentary on Matthew 15:10-20, 21-28

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 August 9, 2026

Mattthew 14:22-33

            I think that there is a conventional wisdom surrounding today’s lesson.  It’s a conventional wisdom that says that I should preach about having enough faith to step out of that boat.  I think it’s a conventional wisdom that says that I should preach about believing and not doubting because if Peter hadn’t doubted, he wouldn’t have sunk, he could have frolicked on the water to his heart’s content.  But I don’t think that that is what I’m being called to talk about this morning and I honestly don’t believe that that is what today’s lesson is really telling us… because I very much believe that today’s lesson is a continuation of last week’s lesson where Jesus used the miracle of the five barley loaves and two fishes to teach the disciples, and to teach us, how God wants US to be participants in His miraculous kingdom.  How Jesus wanted to show the disciples, and us, that God’s power can work THROUGH us and that miraculous things can be accomplished by those who allow God to incorporate them into His plans.  And so, let’s look a little deeper into today’s reading and see how it is that Peter’s stroll on the water relates to a miraculous meal.

            Today’s lesson begins immediately after the end of that meal of barley loaves and fishes.  In last week’s lesson, Jesus had been trying to find some solitude; some away time, so that He would be able to spend some time in prayer and communion with His Father and also to have some time alone to grieve the loss of His cousin John the Baptist who He had just found out had been murdered by Herod.  But an enormous crowd of people had gathered, Jesus had compassion on them, and spent the entire day healing the sick and eventually, miraculously feeding that crowd of 10,000 or more people.  And we spoke about how Jesus incorporated the disciples in every step of that miracle, which is something that we will spend a little more time with later. 

            When our reading tells us that Jesus made the disciples get into the boat, it doesn’t convey the force of the Greek text.  Strong’s tells us that the word that Matthew used is ἀναγκάζω (hahn-aaghn-kà-zo), which means to force by threat or persuasion.  I don’t think the disciples actually wanted to get on that boat without Jesus, but Jesus commanded it in no uncertain terms.  Likewise, the word that Matthew used to describe Jesus sending the crowds away was the word that the ancient Greeks used for “divorce”.  And so, that was a forceful sending also.  And finally, after a day’s delay, after sending everyone away, Jesus was able to get that solitude that He so seriously needed. 

            While Jesus was alone praying, our story tells us that the disciple’s boat was a considerable distance from land when they began to be buffeted by waves because the wind was against them.  John’s Gospel tells us that they had rowed 3 to 4 miles before the storm arose.  And I’ve spoken before about the geography of the Sea of Galilee and how storms can arise very quickly.  For such a relatively small lake, the Sea of Galilee can have disproportionately fierce storms with strong winds that are intensified as they pass between two mountain ranges.  And these winds can produce up to twelve foot waves on that little lake.  In 1992 a storm on the Sea of Galilee caused $50 million worth of damage to the town of Tiberius.  So, some of these storms can be quite severe, and even though several of the disciples were experienced fishermen, these storms could be dangerous even for them. 

            And in the midst of this storm, while the disciples are fighting the wind and trying to get to shore, they look up and they see someone walking towards them on the water.  Terrified, they assume that it is a ghost, but Jesus immediately calls out to them saying, “Take courage!  It is I.  Don’t be afraid.”  But there is more to this statement than just Jesus reassuring the disciples that it’s Him.  English syntax requires us to translate the Greek into the words “It is I” but in the Greek, Jesus’ words were ἐγώ εἰμι (ego eye-my) which is literally, “I Am”, and were we to translate those words into the Hebrew, we would end up with YAHWEH, the name with which God identified Himself to Moses at the burning bush.  This wasn’t so much Jesus identifying Himself, as it was Jesus making a declaration.  Jesus was telling the disciples that, in spite of appearances to the contrary, they were safe in God’s hands.

            Now, the story of Peter asking to come out and walk on the water is a pretty well-known story.  But I think that, a lot of times when we read this, we are thinking that Peter is testing Jesus… that Peter is frightened, and is asking for proof that it really is Jesus who is walking towards them… IF you are really Jesus, let me walk towards you.  But Peter’s words would better be translated “SINCE you are Jesus, let me walk towards you.  Here, Osborne paraphrases Peter’s comment as, “Since you are Lord over creation, tell me to participate in your miraculous power”.  [1]  And interestingly, when Peter says this to Jesus, the word he that chooses that we are translating “tell me” is actually a Greek word that was used to describe a proclamation that was made by a king.  Peter is recognizing the authority of Jesus to command him to do something impossible; something miraculous.  My Lectionary Commentary says, “Peter does not so much ask for supernatural powers as he asks to recognize that whatever Jesus commands, Jesus makes possible.  The commands of Jesus, taken seriously, create miracles; they open an incredible reservoir of divine resources.”  [2]

Peter, along with the rest of the disciples, had just been participants in something that was unmistakably a miracle, the feeding of 10,000 or more people with five barley loaves and two fishes.   And so, here we have Peter, who was probably still processing what it meant, or how it felt, to have Jesus’ miraculous power working through him, and Peter very possibly wanted to see the limits of what God was capable of doing through him.  And here is where Peter’s failure becomes a powerful lesson for us.  Our story tells us that Peter initially DOES walk on the water; that he is initially empowered to DO the miraculous.  But as he walks on the water, he sees the wind and the waves and he begins to sink.  And for the third time in our reading today we see that word “Immediately” as Jesus reaches out to save him. 

And once again, our English words fail us as Jesus appears to reprimand Peter for his lack of faith, but that is not at all what Jesus really did.  When Jesus said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  What Jesus was saying really wasn’t a rebuke.  “You of little faith” is from the Greek Ὀλιγόπιστε  (Ooli-gó-peace-tōs) which is a compound word containing the words oligos which means low in quantity and pistis which means faith.  So, Jesus isn’t commenting on a deficient faith from Peter, He is saying that Peter’s faith is still small… not yet big enough to utilize the extent of the power that Jesus will eventually, through the Holy Spirit, show through Peter.  Let’s not forget that Jesus once said that faith the size of a mustard seed could move mountains.  And let’s face it, Peter did have enough faith to step out of that boat.  Next, when Jesus asked why Peter doubted, Jesus wasn’t accusing Peter of doubting HIM.  Again, the Greek word used (And I apologize for the abundance of Greek lessons today!) but the word used was διστάζω (dee-stáh-zo) and διστάζω literally means to think two things at the same time.  Strong’s describes it as “Shifting between two positions, or uncertainty at a crossroads.”           

Peter was caught between an exercise of faith where he honestly believed that he could do anything that Jesus commanded, and the reality of the fact that what he was actually doing was flat out impossible, he was walking on the water for goodness’ sake!  And not only that, but don’t forget that the storm was still raging and Peter may have been contending with waves that were twice his size.  The break in his concentration was fully understandable, but was also the reason for his sinking.  Osborne says, “In the feeding miracle Jesus wanted to involve the disciples in His authoritative act, and this continues here.  When Peter asked to walk on the water that was the response [that] Jesus [was looking for].  As long as Peter focused on Jesus, he was able to take step after step on the water.  However, when he turned to consider the earthly situation, he failed and began to sink into the depths.  The entire New Testament builds on this, as victory over sin and temptation is completely related to the degree to which we are centered [entirely] on Christ.  Peter is the model disciple even in his failure.  He is an all-too human figure, struggling with his growing awareness of Christ, as do we all.”  [3]

As Jesus led Peter back to the boat and they both got in, the storm subsided as quickly as it had begun.  And our story tells us that the disciples in the boat worshiped Jesus, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

We don’t discover who Jesus is in a day or a month or a year.  Jesus’ revelation to us of who He is, requires a lifetime of abiding in Him.  But bit by bit, experience by experience, and miracle by miracle, Jesus reveals Himself to us as the divine Son of God.  And as we begin to understand who Jesus is, Jesus will begin to use us.  He will begin to work through us.  He will begin to incorporate us into God’s plan, and the miracles that will result from that… the miracles of changed lives, the miracles of healed souls and bodies, the miracles of compassion, and kindness, and generosity, and justice will happen THROUGH us! 

Saunders asks us if we can, “sustain the imagination of God’s new world.”  [4]  Are we able to imagine what it is that God is capable of doing through us?  And if we can, are we willing to let God use us as a part of His quest to reconcile the world to Himself?  Twice in the last two weeks we have read about things that were done that should have been impossible to do.  And yet, they were done… and the truly amazing thing is that they were done THROUGH the disciples.  Jesus started with five loaves and two fish and then He empowered the disciples to hand out the bread and the fish and to keep handing out the bread and the fish until 10,000 or more people had eaten all that they could eat.  Peter stepped out of a boat and walked on water in spite of gale force winds and waves that were breaking far over his head. 

Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, “I can accomplish all things through Christ who strengthens me”… All things!  The Holy Spirit is waiting.  Waiting for us to ask God to incorporate us into His will.  Waiting for us to believe that God can accomplish miraculous things through us.  Waiting for us to imagine ourselves as a part of God’s new world, with God’s power working through us to bring His love, His peace, His hope, and His justice to the world.  Let us make ourselves available to God.  Let us echo the words of Isaiah, who said, “Here I am Lord, send me”.

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[1] Grant R. Osborne, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Matthew, Pg. 575

[2] Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa, and Newsome, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV – Year A, Pg. 441

[3] Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa, and Newsome, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV – Year A, Pg.578

[4] Stanley P. Saunders, Preaching the Gospel of Matthew: Proclaiming God’s Presence, Pg. 147-148

Matthew 14:13-21

August 2, 2026

            There is something unique about the miracle in this week’s story, something you may or may not ever have noticed before.  And if you haven’t noticed, don’t feel bad, it’s something that I just discovered this week myself.  So, let me set the stage.  Immediately prior to our reading today, we read that Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, had been imprisoned by Herod Antipas, who was the Tetrarch of Judea… essentially the king.  It seems that Herod fell in love with his half-brother Philip’s wife, Herodias, and convinced her to divorce her husband so she could marry him.  According to Jewish law, this qualified as incest and was strictly forbidden.  But Herod did it anyway.  As Mel Brooks once said… “It’s good to be king”.  But John the Baptist took loud and persistent exception to this, enraging both Herod and Herodias, and so John was arrested.  Herodias wanted Herod to execute him, but Herod was afraid to do that, because the people believed John to be a prophet.  Nevertheless, through some well-known trickery, Herodias forced Herod to execute John and just prior to the start of today’s reading, Jesus had been notified of his cousin John’s death.

            Our story opens with Jesus climbing into a boat to try to escape the crowds so He could have a little solitude, almost certainly due to His grief over losing His cousin.  But the crowds of people, seeing where Jesus was sailing, went on foot and arrived at Jesus’ destination before He did.  When Jesus arrived, our story tells us that He saw the crowds and had compassion on them.  Actually, the word that Matthew uses is Σπλαγχνίζομαι (splock-néws-o-my), which means to be “moved in one’s bowels”, remembering that first century thought regarded the bowels as being the seat of the emotions.  In other words, Jesus was experiencing genuine anguish over “the suffering, confusion, despair, and spiritual lostness of those around Him.”  [1]  And so, instead of reacting with annoyance at the intrusion of the crowds upon His desire for solitude, Jesus responded with love, healing all who were in need.

            As it grew late in the evening, the disciples were concerned about the crowds.  The time for the evening meal had come and gone and the people hadn’t eaten.  The disciples had very little food among themselves and they knew that, even if they could find a place to buy food, feeding a crowd this size would probably cost a year’s wages or more.  And so, they approached Jesus and advised Him to send the people away so the people could go somewhere to find something to eat.  Jesus’ answer to them was… they don’t have to go anywhere; YOU give them something to eat.  And here is where the part of this miracle that is unique in all of the Gospels begins to take shape.  At every point in this miracle, it is not Jesus who is doing the actual work, it is the disciples.  It’s the disciples who come up with the idea that the people need to eat.  It’s the disciples who Jesus commands to feed the people.  It’s the disciples who come up with the five barley loaves and the two fishes.  It’s the disciples who distribute the food which Jesus has blessed, and it’s the disciples who gather up twelve baskets of leftovers after everyone has eaten all they could eat.

            And so, from start to finish, the disciples played a critical role in this miracle.  Jesus immersed the disciples in this miracle because He knew that the disciples had a valuable lesson that they would be able learn from their experience.  And this is a lesson that can speak to us today as well.  The lesson that the disciples learned is that it wasn’t they who fed the multitudes… it was they who had been empowered to feed the multitudes.  On their own, 5 loaves and 2 fishes wouldn’t even have fed the disciples themselves, much less the 10,000 or more people who were there once you counted the women and children.  And yet, with Jesus’ blessing, they got to see how a little became way more than enough.

            How many times have we faced problems in our lives when we thought that there was just no possible solution to the problem?  How many times have we seen something that has moved us in spirit; causing us to wish that we could do something… anything to help?  And yet we feel paralyzed because the issues just seem to be insurmountable… far too much for one person to be able to do anything of consequence to help.  It happens, right?  It’s just like trying to feed 10,000 and some people with five loaves and two fishes.  Some things in this world, poverty, hunger, homelessness, illness, loneliness, are problems that are so pervasive that, more often than not, all that we may feel able to do is to despair over the fact that we lack the resources to do anything that really will make a difference.  Or do we?  Because maybe, just maybe, the solution to those kinds of problems can be found in 5 barley loaves and two fishes. 

            Jo Anne Taylor writes, “The disciples had focused on their scarcity – ‘We have nothing but a little bread and some fish.  It’s not enough to feed this crowd.  We have nothing but our own limitations, our own small view of what God can do.  We have nothing but ourselves.  And that ain’t much, Jesus.”  “And what does Jesus say?  ‘Bring it to me.’”  [2]

I think that sometimes we may need to be reminded that we serve a God who created the universe out of nothing… simply by willing it into existence.  Answer me truthfully… what do we think it is that God is incapable of doing?  Jesus incorporated the disciples in every step of this miracle because He wanted the disciples to understand that there are no limits to what God can do.  And the even more important lesson for the disciples here, is in their learning that there are no limits to what God can do THROUGH them … or through us.  When our actions are anchored in the will of God and our focus is set on Glorifying God, God has ways of making even the smallest contributions… the smallest efforts, more than enough to accomplish His purposes.  Remember that last week we learned that a tiny pinch of yeast will raise enough bread to feed a hundred people or more.  It’s not WHAT we have to give that matters… It’s WHO we have to give it to.

N. T. Wright commented on the disciple’s involvement in this miracle when he said, “This is how it works whenever someone is close enough to Jesus to catch a glimpse of what He is doing and how they could help.  We blunder in with our ideas.  We offer, uncomprehending, what little we have.  Jesus takes ideas, loaves and fishes, money, a sense of humor, time, energy, talents, love, artistic gifts, skill with words, quickness of eye or fingers, whatever we have to offer.  He holds them before His Father with prayer and blessing.  Then, breaking them so they are ready for use, He gives them back to us to give to those who need them.  [3]

I’ve said it often that God doesn’t expect the impossible from us.  He knows our limitations… but He also knows what He is able to accomplish through the gifts, talents, and faithfulness that He has so generously given us.  And once we have made the choice to serve Him, use us He will.  He will use us to make a difference.  He will use us to touch the lives of others.  He will use us to show His love to the world through the compassion, and grace, and kindness that the Spirit of God has created in the hearts of His disciples that His disciples will then, in turn, show to the world… and when I say His disciples, I mean us.  Whatever it is that we have to offer, no matter how small we may think it is… God can, and will, use it to accomplish wonderful things, when we give it to Him.  We may or may not ever see the results of our efforts, but the Bible tells us that God’s word never comes home void.  Every time one of His beloved children offers a service in His name, that effort will be honored by God, and God will see to it that the result of our efforts will produce a harvest of righteousness.

And now, there is one more thing about today’s lesson that I would like to talk about.  And it is something that we can all discover if we listen closely.  As the disciples came to Jesus with their tiny offering of 5 loaves and two fishes, What did Jesus do?  Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples.  Does any of this sound familiar?  We are actually going to be hearing these words in just a few minutes, because in the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus is foreshadowing the Eucharist.  When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper we are remembering not only the Last Supper and Christ’s sacrifice, but we are also looking forward to the great banquet in heaven.   And here, Jesus is giving the disciples, and us, a glimpse of what His banquet in heaven is going to look like.

In the first century, barley was the least expensive grain.  The loaves were not loaves of bread as we think of them today, they would have been more about the size of a hard roll.  And five loaves and two fish would have been an adequate meal for about two people.  And because barley was inexpensive, barley loaves and fish were the common diet of the poor.  This was not a banquet of the wealthy and powerful; certainly not like the banquet for Herod’s birthday, about which we spoke earlier.  But it was a banquet that was offered to all who would receive it, regardless of their status.  It was a banquet that was given to the people that came from a place of love and compassion.  It was a banquet that Jesus created out of next to nothing.  And it was a banquet that was intended from the very beginning, not only to fill the needs of a great multitude of people, but also to teach the disciples about the sovereignty of God’s reign in Christ.  And so important was this lesson to the disciples that this is the only miracle, aside from the resurrection, that is reported in all four Gospels.

Osborne says, “The entire New Testament attests to the deity of Christ and His oneness with the Father.  As a member of the Godhead Jesus created this world and He both sustains and controls it.  Therefore, He asks the disciples here to realize this reality and to depend [entirely] on Him.  He is the Alpha and Omega, meaning He is Lord of history; and God’s people must entrust themselves to His omnipotent and omnipresent presence in their lives.  The disciples needed to experience not only the power and provision of Jesus in their lives, but also how they can participate in that power and see it flow through them.”  [4] 

As we look at the lesson this week, what we find is an invitation.  Just as Jesus asked the disciples to participate in every step of this miracle, so it is that Jesus is inviting US to participate in miracles.  Do we have friends, or neighbors, or acquaintances who need to hear the Good News of the Gospel?  Do we know people who are sick and in need of healing?  Do we see suffering in our neighborhoods?  Do we see hunger, or homelessness, or poverty, or those in need of work?  Do we see systemic injustice affecting those around us?  Do we see people being marginalized or exploited?  And if we do, are we willing to take whatever little thing we have… whether it be barley loaves, or lame ideas, or some small gift with which we believe God has blessed us and offer that little bit of whatever… to God.  Because when we do that… God will bless it, and break it, and give it back to us so that we can use it to make a difference in the lives of others.

Do we think for one minute that the disciples believed that their five loaves and their two fishes were going to accomplish anything?  And yet, that small gift fed ten thousand or more people!  Do we think for one minute that whatever small gift that we may offer to God is going to accomplish anything?  Well, today’s story promises us that it will.  My friends, it’s not WHAT we have to give that matters… It’s WHO we have to give it to.  So, let us take whatever little that we have to give, and give it wholeheartedly, trusting that He who created the universe by speaking it into existence, will be faithful to multiply our gifts, and use them to His glory.

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[1] John MacArthur, Matthew: The Coming of the King, Pg. 80

[2] Jo Anne Taylor, APastorSings.com, Identity Crisis Nothing Sermon on Matthew 14:13-21

[3] N. T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone Part 1, Pg. 133-134

[4] Grant R. Osborne, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Matthew, Pg. 568

July 26, 2026

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

            I don’t know if we can understand what a precarious position the Gospel message was in in the first century.  Just 12 men… called to bring the Good News to the ends of the earth.  That’s all!  A few weeks back we talked about this, and I mentioned that God’s entire plan for the reconciliation of humanity to Himself rested on the shoulders of those 12 men along with a small handful of other followers, including several women.

            Today we are spending our third week in the 13^th chapter of Matthew, a section that theologians refer to as “the discourse of parables”.  And today we added six more parables to those about which we have spoken in the previous two weeks.  In each of today’s parables Jesus is describing what the kingdom of heaven is like.  And in His first introduction, Jesus compares it to a mustard seed and a pinch of yeast.  A mustard seed is tiny, barely a speck of dust, and yet once planted it becomes a bush that can grow to ten or twelve feet high; big enough that birds can come and nest in its branches.  A tiny amount of yeast gets mixed into 60 pounds of flour, making enough bread to feed over a hundred people.  And so, we begin today with a picture of the kingdom of heaven being something that starts small but grows into something significant.  But in keeping with the idea that we have been talking about where a parable is something that is “thrown alongside” in order that we may be able to compare two things to learn new truths, this idea of the tiny mustard seed becoming a huge plant or a tiny amount of yeast rising enough dough to feed a hundred people or more can have more than one meaning.

            For sure, the kingdom of heaven begins rather inauspiciously.  An infant, born in a backwater town in a country that was occupied by a much larger and more powerful nation.  And while there were angels who heralded that birth, they heralded it to shepherds, who were just about the lowest rung of the social ladder in the ancient world.  After learning almost nothing about His childhood, Jesus began His ministry by choosing his disciples, and there was not a one of them who was influential or politically connected.  In fact, the disciples seemed like a rather motley group of followers… a few fishermen and a tax collector (and need I remind you that the tax collectors were the absolute lowest of the low?).  A Zealot (who today we would probably describe as a terrorist), and a few followers of that crazy John the Baptist guy.  Not exactly the sort of stuff from which powerful movements are made. 

And as far as the “important” people of first century Palestine were concerned, well, they thought that they ended the ministry of this annoying, itinerant, preacher when they arrested and crucified Him, Of course, they didn’t, because Jesus was raised from the dead, right?  And then, after He was raised from the dead, who did He send with the message that He was alive?  The Women!  And please don’t take offense to this my dear sisters, because we all know how, at that time and in that place, women were accorded very little value.  And while Jesus did value women greatly, even equally, that certainly isn’t how the rest of the world looked at things.  So inconsequential were women considered to be that they were not even permitted to be a witness in a court of law.  And so, the choice of Jesus to use women to bring the message became just one more excuse to ignore the message completely. 

When we look at Christianity’s beginnings, I can’t help but think of the line that Judas sings in “Jesus Christ Superstar” when he said, “Why’d you choose such a backward time and such a strange land?”  [1]  It’s almost as if this whole “kingdom of God” thing was intentionally designed to fly under the radar.

Nevertheless, Jesus came… and He placed God’s plan of redemption in the hands of this ragtag bunch of followers.  But just like the insignificant little mustard seed, or that tiny little pinch of yeast, the followers of Jesus have grown the Christian faith into the predominant religion on this planet. 

But this astonishing growth of our faith is not the only thing that these parables are teaching us.  It’s not just that the kingdom appeared on earth with small beginnings and became a faith that permeated the world.  It’s also helping us to understand the fact that the kingdom of heaven tends to sneak up on people.  To many people, if not most people, their first introduction to the message of the Gospel sounds pretty lame.  There is a God who is all knowing and all powerful and He wants us to follow Him, but He won’t show Himself to us.  He won’t even make His presence known, at least not overtly.  Why wouldn’t an all knowing and all powerful God just show up with lightning and thunder and splendor and majesty?  Wouldn’t that make it all a whole lot easier?

            But that is not how God works.  And the reason that that’s not how God works is because that is not WHO GOD IS.  Our second two parables this morning help us to understand that.  A man is working in a field.  He’s probably a hired hand and while he is working, he discovers a buried treasure.  Now, this isn’t as unlikely an event as it may sound.  In the first century there were no banks, no safety deposit boxes, no IRA’s or revocable trusts.  If you had wealth, if you had treasure, just about the only way that you could protect it was to bury it somewhere.  (And hopefully remember where you buried it!)  It is not at all uncommon today for archaeologists to uncover jars that are full of coins or full of jewels, and these jars that they are finding are the safety deposit boxes of the ancient world.  And so, maybe someone forgot they buried it, or someone died before they recovered it, and our laborer friend working in the field found it, returned it to its hiding place, sold everything that he had, and purchased the field so that the treasure would become legally his. 

Likewise, a merchant, was looking for fine pearls for his collection.  In the ancient world, pearls were the showpieces of one’s jewelry collection.  Osborne tells us that, “Pearls were considered the most luxurious of jewels.  [Pearls] came from the Red Sea ([Those were the] common pearls), the Persian Gulf ({Those were] the most expensive), and [from] India.  They were worth, at times, the equivalent of millions of dollars.  [2]  Pearls were, to the ancient world, what diamonds are today.  And when our merchant friend found this one pearl, this perfect pearl, this incredibly valuable pearl, he sold off his entire collection just so that he could own this one incredible pearl.

And so, whether we encounter the kingdom of God by accident, like the laborer in the field did, or after an exhaustive search, like our merchant friend, when we find something of surpassing value, we will often take whatever measures are necessary to obtain that item of value.  Is there a better way to describe our acceptance of God’s unimaginably gracious offer to welcome us into His kingdom?  Is there a better way to describe the response of one who has personally felt the love of God in their lives and has responded to that love by giving their heart to God?  Beare says, “Anyone who counts the cost of discipleship has completely failed to grasp the greatness of the reward”  [3]

God doesn’t come to us in the thunder and the lightening.  He comes to us as the mustard seed or the pinch of yeast.  He comes in quiet humility, in kindness, in graciousness, because THAT… that is who God is!  And when the believer discovers that… when the believer feels the gentle guidance of the Spirit… when the believer learns of the love that Jesus showered upon us at the cross… when the believer finally understands how God has quietly but persistently been seeking us, pursuing us, calling us to His side, then we realize that no sacrifice on our part becomes too much for us to make as we respond to Him in gratitude and in love.

And with our response, there comes a change.  As the love of God, just like that pinch of yeast, permeates our soul, it changes how we think.  It changes how we act.  It changes how we view the world.  It changes our values and our goals… it changes who we are.  And because of that change we become people who don’t just see the kingdom, but we become fully a part of the kingdom. 

And a big part of that process is us discovering how desperately the world needs to find that pearl of great price; how desperately the world needs the saving grace of God.  The end of today’s reading drives home just how important our witness is to the world.  Jesus tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like a net that is let down into a lake that catches all kinds of fish.  When the net is full the fishermen pull it to the shore, then they sit down and separate the fish.  Fish that are unclean or inedible are thrown out while the good fish are collected in baskets for the market.

Just like last week’s parable of the wheat and the tares, this is a frightening warning about the impending fate of those who will reject the Gospel.  Scott Hoezee says, “Jesus concludes with an image where subtlety goes out the window.  There will come a time of reckoning at the end of all things, Jesus says.  There will come a time when the “bad fish” will get tossed into a fate that is more than definitely on the grim side.  So, in the long run, despite all Jesus had to say about the hiddenness of the kingdom in the here and now, the day will come when the kingdom will be all in all and each person will either be in that kingdom or outside of it.  We witness to the kingdom in ways consistent with the kingdom, which means lovingly and humbly and compassionately.  But witness we must.  The stakes are too high to stay quiet.”  [4]

Our reading today closes with a short parable that has perplexed theologians for 2000 years.  Jesus said to the disciples, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”  And while there are lots of guesses as to meanings that may be hidden in this short parable, one thing is certain… Jesus describes His disciples as teachers of the Law.  The Teachers of the Law, or Scribes, were those who had dedicated their lives to learning the Torah and to teaching others about the Law.  Here Jesus is telling His disciples (and that would include US) that we have taken over this responsibility… that WE are the new Scribes; the new Teachers of the Law. 

Last week my friend David Ourisman sent me a link to a Substack post of his about this week’s lectionary reading.  In it, he said, “So by the time you reach the scribe of [Matthew] 13:52, the question this chapter has been building toward has changed.  Not: what’s the treasure?  Rather: what kind of person can be trusted with the treasure?  Understanding is not enough.  Matthew seeks teachers whose understanding has grown into mercy — feeding, welcoming, visiting — before calling them ready to teach others.  Matthew does not ask only whether a teacher has found the treasure.  He asks what the treasure has done to the teacher.”  [5]

And so today, I ask us to ask ourselves the question, “What has the treasure done to us?”  Are we allowing this treasure to make us more Christ-like?  Are we allowing this treasure to lead us to become more compassionate, more forgiving, more loving, more willing to step out of our comfort zones in order to reach a world that so badly needs to hear and to understand the message of the Gospel? 

The kingdom of heaven is like a tiny pinch of yeast that, when shared has the capacity to permeate the lives of others, not only that they may be saved, but that they, in turn, will spread the yeast of the Gospel to others, growing God’s kingdom, to the ends of the earth, one heart at a time.

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[1] Music and Lyrics by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice
Copyright © 1970, 1971 by Universal/MCA Music Publishing Ltd. and The Really Useful Group Ltd.

[2] Grant R. Osborne, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Matthew, Pg. 541

[3] Matthew Beare, Findings, Pg. 315

[4] Scott Hoezee, CEPreaching.org., Commentary on Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 (2)

[5] David Ourisman, Surprised By the Text, When the Text Won’t Stay Small

July 19, 2026

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

            So, for the second week in a row we have an agricultural parable.  But even though both of these parables are related to seeds and harvests, their meanings couldn’t be more different.  Last week we discussed how the seeds fared as they landed on different types of soil.  The parable taught us that different circumstances can cause different people to react to the Word in different ways and even taught us that a single person can react differently in different times and in different situations.  We also touched on the extravagance of God’s grace as He shares His word generously, not wishing that anyone would fail to hear the Good News.  But this week our focus is on the crop itself.  So, let’s take a look at the story.

            A farmer sows his field with “good” seed, but an enemy comes at night and sows weeds in the same fields that were just sown with the good seed.  As the crop begins to grow, the slaves working in the field discover the fact that there are weeds mixed in with the good plants.  The slaves ask the master if they should remove the weeds, but the master tells them to leave them.  That they would all be sorted out at the harvest.    

            And for the second week in a row, I have learned a few things about agriculture.  First, I learned that allowing the weeds to grow along with the crop is highly irregular.  Saunders tells us that, “The surprise in the parable comes when the householder forbids them from [removing the weeds],  He directs the servants to let the wheat and weeds grow up together until the harvest, when the weeds will be collected first, bundled, and burned, and then the wheat would be gathered into the barn,  Ancient audiences might well have wondered what kind of farmer this is and if this farmer knows what he’s doing.  [1]

            The second thing that I learned is that the likely weed that was sown alongside the good seed was something called “Darnel”  Darnel looks identical to wheat until it begins to mature, when it sprouts leaves.   Darnel is poisonous in substantial quantities and is capable of killing a human.  But in small amounts it is an intoxicant and indeed darnel was purposely cultivated to add to beer to increase the level of intoxication received from the beverage.  We also know that darnel has a very robust root system and that, mixed in with wheat, pulling the darnel plants out by the root would have damaged or killed many of the wheat plants whose roots had become entwined with the darnel roots. 

            The reason that we highly suspect that darnel is the weed in question here is the fact that ancient, unscrupulous farmers would go out in the dead of night and sow darnel in the fields of their business rivals.  So common was this practice that Rome actually had a law against the illicit sowing of darnel, so, it’s highly likely that this is the practice to which Jesus was referring.

            In our story the slaves who discover the unexpected addition to their crop ask their master if he is sure that the seed that he planted was good and not tainted.  I would imagine that the slaves may have been concerned that they may be blamed for the unwanted darnel that had been planted in their field.  But when slaves asked their master if they should pull out the weeds, the master, aware of the potential damage to the wheat should they do that, advised them to allow the darnel to continue to grow alongside the wheat so that none of the wheat plants would be harmed.

            When Jesus and the disciples left the crowds behind and returned to the house in which they were staying, the disciples asked Jesus to explain the parable.  Jesus provided a very straightforward explanation, saying that the field is the world, the sower is Jesus, the good seed are the people of the kingdom, the weeds are “the people of the evil one”, and the enemy, well, that’s Satan.

            And here is where today’s reading starts to get interesting.  Because for hundreds of years there have been Jewish parables with which Jesus’ listeners would have been quite familiar.  And in these Jewish parables God is almost always represented by the landowner.  The enemy in these stories is almost always Satan himself.  And the wheat traditionally represents Israel while the weeds represent the Gentiles.  And viewing the parable through this lens, Jesus appears to be telling a story about the redemption of Israel and the judgment of the Gentiles.  But that isn’t what Jesus said.  Rather than the wheat being Israel and the weeds being the Gentiles… and this is important… Jesus declares the wheat to be the “People of the kingdom” and the weeds to be the “People of the evil one”. 

And in saying this, Jesus is declaring that the good portion of this mixed crop, the wheat, representing the “People of the kingdom” is those who are hearing and living His Word.  And the good portion of this mixed crop is not accepted to be Israel as traditionally thought but is instead understood to be those from the ends of the earth who have heard and received the Gospel message.  And some of these people are going to be Gentiles.  And the bad portion of the mixed crop, the weeds representing the people of the evil one, are not being considered to be the Gentiles but rather are those who have heard the Word and have rejected it, and some of these people… are going to be Israelites.  The Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law and the Jewish people who have failed to recognize (or more accurately, flat out rejected) Jesus are the “People of the evil one”.  And it is they who are the invasive plants in this narrative.

Now, as I said earlier, the first century listeners to this parable would have been wondering if the landowner was nuts… allowing the darnel to continue to grow alongside the wheat.  Having the darnel mixed with the wheat will ruin the crop and the easiest, best, time to remove the darnel would be immediately after it sprouted leaves.  And so, removing the darnel at that time, would have been the best bet to protect his crop, but removing the darnel also would have damaged a significant portion of the good crop.  Now, if this farmer is making a value judgment about the pros and cons of removing the darnel then removing it would absolutely be his best bet and removing it at the earliest possible time would minimize the damage done to the rest of his crops.  This is why rival farmers used to do this.  Because it would cause his rival a loss of crops and a loss of income as many good plants would be destroyed in the process of removing the darnel.

But this parable is not a real farmer with a real problem.  This parable is something that Jesus has “thrown alongside” to allow us to make comparisons that lead us to a truth.  And what Jesus is really telling us here is that God, in His great love and patience, is going to allow the children of the evil one to continue to live among the children of the kingdom in order to ensure that every single one of His beloved children has every available opportunity to turn to Him and live.

Does this mingling of the children of the evil one and the children of the kingdom have the potential to create real world problems for people, especially for the children of the kingdom?  Absolutely, and it often does.  And when this happens, there can be no question that these real world problems can seem to be deeply unfair, and to those who have not yet received the word, these real world problems could appear to be a sign to them that God doesn’t care, or that He doesn’t exist at all.  But when we stop to think about this, we come to the difficult conclusion that those who are calling this unfair are thinking only about themselves.  They are not thinking about those who are desperately in need of hearing the Word.  And as hard as it may be to accept this, Christians are called to think about others before they think about themselves.  The question that the Christian needs to be asking themselves in these circumstances is, “Am I willing to be inconvenienced, to be disadvantaged, or even to be hurt, in order that another person may have the time that they need to BECOME a child of the kingdom?”  Is temporary suffering a reasonable price to pay for the saving of the eternal soul of another human being?  It is a tough question, isn’t it?  And it’s the exact question that Jesus had to answer for Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane, the exact question that caused Jesus to sweat great drops of blood.  It is a very, very difficult question indeed.

But the believer always needs to remember that God’s highest priority is reconciliation.  And the believer also needs to remember that, if God instantly judged sin, there would be nobody left, because we are all sinners, saved only by the grace, love, and patience, of God.  It’s just that we happened to be saved a little earlier than some others.  And so, Jesus asks His children to persevere, to hang in there, and to continue to love others and to continue to share the Gospel.  Because, as the old saying goes, the People of the evil one are not the enemy.  They are victims of the enemy.  And God is seeking to reconcile as many of those people of the evil one to Himself as He possibly can.  And God is calling on US to be the ones who bring to them the Words of salvation… the Words of life.  What is it that Jesus said?  “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”?

Chelsey Harmon says, “The reality of how farming works—both then and now—is a cue to us to pay attention to the surprise in this parable.

  The surprise that the farmer DOESN’T remove the threat to the wheat until the harvest… challenges us to trust the farmer who is seemingly going about his trade in the wrong way.  This parable isn’t a lesson on how we approach evil in the world; it’s about being able to comprehend the bigger picture of the reality that the Kingdom is already here, but evil is still present—and will be present until the final judgement.”  [2] 

The key for the believer is to trust.  Do we trust that God knows what He is doing?  Do we?  Do we trust that God has a plan?  And do we trust that God will not only make all things right, but that God is going to make all things awesome beyond our capacity to understand.  I can’t say this loudly enough… God will reward the faithful.  We must have trust that, as Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has conceived the things that God has prepared for those who love Him.”. 

And as for those who choose NOT to love Him.  Well, all of that darnel is going to be gathered, bundled, and thrown into the fire.  That blazing furnace is not a joke.  However it is that we choose to understand that blazing furnace, and this is really just another instance of the finite trying to understand the infinite, whether we accept the existence of eternal flames, or whether we accept this as allegorical, or whether we accept this as something that is just totally beyond our comprehension, the one thing of which we are certain, is the fact that there is going to come a time when the people of the evil one will be eternally separated from God.  Separated from God’s love.  Separated from God’s care.  Separated from God’s righteousness.  And if that isn’t hell… then I don’t know what is. 

The truth is, when I stop to think about this, separation from God isn’t something that I would wish on my worst enemy.  And so, in spite of the potential for difficulties, the call to us is to trust God, to believe that He knows what He is doing, and most important, to believe that His plan is GOOD… even when we can’t see that ourselves.  His call to us is to, as we are going, bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth.  We must carry the Good News, even to the people of the evil one.  We must love others, even those who are difficult to love, even those who reject our love, because this is exactly what Jesus did.  And so, we emulate Jesus in a way that, through our love, and even though our love for the people of the evil one, those to whom we witness may discover for themselves this incredible love that God has for them.

Judgement is a hard thing to talk about.  It’s even a hard thing to think about.  The fact that there are those who will suffer an eternity separated from God is too horrible a thought to even consider.  And this is why we make the hard choice to love the unlovable. 

For those of us who are repulsed at the very idea of final judgement, I would like to close with something that I have said many times in my lifetime to many different people who have asked me questions about the judgement.  When the day comes that God reconciles the world to Himself, we will all stand in open mouthed astonishment at the depth of God’s mercy, and at the rightness of His judgments.  And until that day comes my friends, we are going to have to put our faith in Him… and trust Him.

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[1] Saunders, Stanley P., Preaching the Gospel of Matthew, Pg. 129

[2] Chelsey Harmon, CEPreaching.org, Commentary on Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43

July 12, 2026

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

            The really cool thing about parables is the fact that you can look at them in different ways and very often learn different things based on how you look at that parable.  In the Greek, the word “παραβολή” (para-bow-láy) is a compound word consisting of the words “παρα” which means “alongside” and “βολή” which means to throw, so to tell a parable is to throw something alongside.  In other words, to use one thing to describe another.  When Jesus uses parables, what He is really doing is inviting the listener to think deeper.  Tom Long explained that “Jesus preached in these confusing parables in order to make people deeper thinkers about what the gospel is all about.  Jesus did not want to have people grab the gospel too quickly because such a quick grab almost always resulted in bad faith or shallow faith that did not last long.”  [1]  Sort of like the seed on the rocky soil that we will learn more about in a minute.  And so, the object of the parables is to throw something alongside so that we can make a comparison that illuminates a truth.

            In today’s reading we have a parable about a farmer planting seed and about the results that the farmer receives based on where the seed fell.  The parable was spoken to a crowd at a lakeside, but fortunately, we have the benefit of a subsequent conversation that Jesus had with the disciples where He explained the whole parable. 

And so, let’s take a look at today’s story.  It’s the beginning of the planting season and a farmer is out scattering seed.  Some of the seeds fall on the path where birds snatch it up.  Some of the seeds fall on places where there was a thin layer of dirt over rock and the plants couldn’t take root.  Some of the seeds fall among the thorny bushes and were choked so they couldn’t grow.  And some of the seeds fall on good soil where they take root and thrive.  And reading on just a little bit further we can hear Jesus Himself explain this parable.  Satan steals the word from people who hear it but don’t receive it, just like the birds steal the seed from the path.  One who initially receives the Word but doesn’t live it, has faith with no roots, and at the first sign of adversity, their faith withers just like the rootless plants on the rock.  Those for whom the message of faith becomes lost in the day-to-day struggles of life will have what little faith they have choked just like the plants that fell among the thorn bushes.  But those who receive and live the word become fruitful, just like the seeds that fell on the good soil.  And they return a hundred, or sixty, or thirty times what was sown.

And so, yes, there are different ways that different people respond to the word and different ways that people respond to the parables.  For those who are curious… for those who have been blessed with a desire to know and to understand the Word the parables will be an avenue to even greater understanding, but for those who have no interest or for those who can’t be bothered, the parables, taken simply at face value, will make no sense at all.  Warren Wiersbe says, “Jesus did not teach in parables to confuse or condemn the people.  Rather, He sought to excite their interest and arouse their curiosity.  These parables would give light to those with trusting, searching hearts.  But they would bring darkness to the unconcerned and unrepentant.”  [2]  And so, any parable’s meaning will be, in large part, determined by the amount of thought put into finding out how that which is thrown alongside relates to the heart of the message.  And if that was the end of today’s story this would be the shortest sermon ever.  But hold on a moment, because we aren’t quite done seeing what else may have been revealed by that which was thrown alongside this parable.

As we read Jesus’ explanation, it probably leaves us asking the question, “What kind of soil am I?”  And our assumption is that each kind of soil is a different kind of person.  But what if each of these types of soil are a part of who we are?  What happens if one day we joyfully hear and receive the Word but the next day we have a crisis and our faith is shaken?  Wouldn’t that mean that one day we were the good soil but the next we were the rocky soil?  What happens if we hear a passage that is difficult or if we find that we are being called to do something that we would really prefer not to do?   Is our faith going to carry us through this or are we going to sweep that verse under the rug?  And wouldn’t our sweeping that verse under the rug mean that today our soil was the hard dirt of the path?  And what if a new job or a new relationship or a new baby monopolized our time, drawing us away from the church, away from the community of believers, and away from our study of the Word?  Wouldn’t that be like the thorn bushes choking the seedlings?

To assume that we are only one kind of dirt will pretty much always mean that we think of ourselves as always being the good soil.  And more often than not, we are.  I mean… we’re all in church, right?  But there may be times in each of our lives when our ability to receive the word or to live the word may be compromised, and so, it is a very good thing for us to be able to recognize what kind of soil we may be on that particular day or in that particular instance, so that we can always return to the Word and always return to the faithful service to which we are called and indeed in which we delight.  This is why Jesus said “whoever has ears, let them hear”.  Jesus doesn’t give us any further instruction on this parable beyond this.  But what He is doing is… He is calling us not just to hear His words, but to immerse ourselves in the story in order to discern His meaning.  And then to take what we learn, and to apply it in our lives so that we may, more consistently, become that good soil that bears fruit. 

Saunders says, “How, then, do we know if we have understood Jesus’ parable rightly?  Fruit is the answer.  When we ‘see’ the evidence of God’s healing, mercy, gathering, and restoration and we ‘hear’ the announcements of good news, we know that God has drawn near in power.  The fruit of obedience grows when we conform our lives to the reality of God’s presence.”  [3]  The fruit of the seeds that Jesus is sowing here is discipleship.  Jesus is calling all upon whom the seed falls to become a part of His mission, to become a part of His call to share the Gospel to the ends of the earth, to become a part of His plan to go and make disciples, and ultimately for us to become one with Jesus… and with the Father… through the Holy Spirit.

But I’m still not done, because there is one more thing that has been thrown alongside and I am wondering if anyone has seen it.  I actually learned a bit about agriculture this week and learned some fascinating things about modern agricultural technology.  Did you know that farmers use lasers to level their fields, because a level field means more consistent irrigation?  Did you know that farmers have planting machines that are controlled by computers that distribute seed in the absolute optimum density and configuration?  Not one seed is wasted!  Each individual seed that is planted is given the best possible circumstances to produce maximum growth.  Because seed is expensive and wasting seed is inefficient and reduces profits.

Even in the first century farmers would be judicious with their seeds.  They knew from experience exactly how much area one handful of seed would cover and they wouldn’t waste their money with overseeding.  A first-century farmer wouldn’t scatter seed on the path or drop it among the thorn bushes.  That would just be a foolish waste of money.  And yet here… in our story today, we have a farmer who is scattering seed willy nilly.  Just throwing it everywhere. 

One of my commentaries gave a hilarious example of a modern-day farmer starting up his computer controlled seeding machine while he was still parked in the driveway, scattering seed on the blacktop.  He pulls out onto the road with seed still flying everywhere, on the highway, into the ditch, even covering the cars of passers by.  And when he finally gets to his field he drives right onto it and continues scattering the seed there on his field where it belongs, but even then, he doesn’t stop seeding when he drives over the paths or when he crosses over into the next field.  Can you imagine how much seed this guy wasted?  It’s a funny picture to be sure; a truck driving down the road with seeds just flying everywhere.

But in our parable today the farmer is God, and the seed is the word.  And when God shares His word, He is extravagantly generous.  He doesn’t care if the seed falls on the path, who knows when one of those seeds might just take root.  He doesn’t care if the seed falls on the rocky soil or on the thorn bushes.  If there is even the slightest possibility that just one seed will take root, then God will rejoice over that one seed.

Jo Anne Taylor tells us that, “This parable, like all scripture, is really about God and God’s extravagant generosity.  God is the Sower, scattering seed liberally, even wastefully, everywhere.  It’s what God does.  It’s what God keeps on doing.  God keeps throwing seeds, regardless of where the seed might land.  God is love, and love is generous, lavish, abundant, eager to share what is good.  God will not withhold the Word from anyone.  God will not deny anyone access to the Good News.”  [4]

            Those of us who have received the word… those of us who have been the good soil, need to remember that we do not have understanding of these things because we are smarter, or better, or more faithful.  We understand these things because God, in His great mercy and love, has chosen us… and has called us… to become a part of His eternal family.  And as a part of that family we are called to live lives that bear fruit.  To live lives that continually reflect the goodness and the generosity and the love of God.  Now, the thing is, we will be doing all this knowing that sometimes our words are going to fall on the path, or on the rocky soil, or among the thorn bushes.  But… Hyde says, “Some of what we do will find its way into the soft, accepting soil of hearts that are begging to know of God and the good news of redemption that only Christ can give.  And that is why we go.”  [5]

            It’s great to be the good soil…  No question about it!  But just please remember that the whole point of being the good soil is for us to provide a place where the seed will grow and thrive in our hearts.  A place where the seed of our witness will produce a crop, thirty, sixty, or a hundred times what was sown.         

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[1] Thomas G. Long, Proclaiming the Parables

[2] Warren Wiersbe, Be Loyal, Pg. 108

[3] Stanley P. Saunders, Preaching the Gospel of Matthew, Pg. 126

[4] Jo Anne Taylor, A Pastor Sings.com, It’s Not About the Dirt

[5] Randy L. Hyde, SermonWriter.com, The Good Earth

July 5, 2026

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

            If you’re a parent, you’re probably familiar with this, “I’M BORED”.  It’s the middle of summer.  School has been out for a month.  It’s a beautiful sunny day, a little warm but not uncomfortably so.  And the world is full of possibilities… full of fun things to do… or productive things to do.  Most older folk like me can only yearn for a day like this!  But your child is planted on the living room sofa, ostensibly with nothing to do.  And so, as a mom or a dad it is apparently now your responsibility to magically come up with something for your child to do.  Why don’t you go outside? NAH!  Do you want to watch TV?  NAH!  You could have a friend over.  NAH!  Didn’t I just buy you a new video game?  “It’s boring!”  Anybody remember this?  I surely do!  It’s not that there isn’t anything for your child to do, it’s just that after a month away from school your child has pretty much become blasé over all of the available options and is now hoping for something new and different.  There’s not really anything wrong with this, I guess it’s just a part of being a teenager.  In fact, looking back through the mists of time, I believe that I can see myself planted on that sofa also.

            In today’s lesson, Jesus uses this exact imagery.  A group of children have gathered in the marketplace to play, (The marketplace was the customary place for first-century kids to gather.)  There were apparently two groups of children, the one group was is in charge of figuring out what they all want to do.  The other group… well, they were in charge of NAH!  Do you want play hide and seek?  NAH!  Do you want to play tag?  NAH!  Do you want to play Red Rover?  NAH!  (I find myself wondering if my grandchildren even know what Red Rover is.) 

            But Jesus chooses this image this morning to make a point.  For the folks who are constantly looking for that new and different experience; always looking for the latest new thing, the world probably doesn’t have a whole lot to offer them that is going to inspire them.  The children in Jesus’ parable today played a happy song, maybe pretending that they were having a wedding, but the kids in charge of NAH! weren’t interested.  They didn’t play along, and they didn’t dance to the happy music.  Then the children in the parable played a sad song, maybe pretending that they were having a funeral.  But the kids in charge of NAH! weren’t interested in that either.  They didn’t play along, and they didn’t mourn with the sad music.  Because for the kids in charge of NAH! nothing was new enough, or interesting enough, or exciting enough, or fresh enough, to hold their attention.

            For the adult people of first century Palestine, John the Baptist was new and interesting for a while, and initially he attracted a lot of attention.  But I guess eventually quite a few people decided that he was… maybe a little weird.  After all, John was an ascetic, a man who denied himself almost every human comfort in order for him to be able to focus entirely on his message of impending judgment.  “Repent!  For the kingdom of heaven is near.”  And while there were plenty of folks who heard his message and believed him, there were many more who became bored with his message and refused to play along, or to mourn with him.

            I think it’s fair to say that Jesus attracted a lot of attention also.  The Bible tells us that a lot of people followed him around just hoping to see a miracle.  But when Jesus refused to perform a miracle on demand in Capernaum, people turned against Him so quickly that they tried to throw Him off of a cliff.  So, I guess you could say that they didn’t play along or sing along with Him either.

            Our story today tells us that, “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’  The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’  But then our story tells us that, “wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”  And that last line… that, “Wisdom is proved right by her deeds” is really the key to understanding today’s story.  Because today’s story is teaching us that there are two kinds of wisdom.  There is worldly wisdom and there is God’s wisdom. 

            There is an extremely old Christian document called The Didache.  Most scholars place the writing of this document in the late first century and there is a prevalent school of thought that The Didache actually pre-dates the Gospels, thinking that it may have been written as early as the year 60.  The Didache was subtitled, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” and it is a summary of Christian thought, presumed to have been written by Jewish Christians to teach the Gentile Christians about Jesus’ teachings and about their new faith.  And The Didache begins by saying “There are two ways, one of life and one of death; and between the two ways there is a great difference.”  And then The Didache describes the difference between these two types of wisdom. 

Chelsey Harmon summarizes this teaching, saying, “The way of LIFE is founded upon the great commandment, ‘you shall love God who made you; second, love your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to another what you would not want done to you.’  The way of life, among other things, includes generosity, hospitality and taking personal responsibility to work.  The way of DEATH is made up of all the evil things including those characterized as “from whom meekness and endurance are far, loving vanities, pursuing revenge, not pitying a poor man, not laboring for the afflicted, not knowing Him who made them, murderers, destroyers of the handiwork of God, turning away from him who is in want, afflicting him who is distressed, advocates of the rich, lawless judges of the poor, utter sinners.”  In other words, the destructive way of death is greedy, selfish, and lazy.”  [1]

In today’s parable Jesus introduces us to this idea of the two ways of living.  John the Baptist came preaching a message of repentance.  His preaching was forceful and direct and the Gospels make it quite clear that he was widely accepted by the people as a prophet, and indeed Jesus called him the greatest of all prophets, and yet there were plenty of people who said, “nah!”  He’s crazy, he’s demon possessed.  But remember what our lesson said last week?  Whoever rejects John the Baptist’s words, rejects the One who sent him.  That forceful preaching… that message that John preached SO passionately that his passion cost him his life, was dismissed by many because his message didn’t resonate with those who were looking for that next big worldly thing.  That next “shiny object” that would capture their attention.

Jesus came with preaching that was forceful and direct too, but in addition to His preaching, Jesus healed the sick and the lame.  Right there in front of everybody He gave sight to the blind, speech to the mute, and hearing to the deaf.  And every good Jew who had learned their Torah KNEW that these things that Jesus was doing were spoken of in the Torah as things that the Messiah was going to do.  THOSE WHO REJECTED HIM SHOULD HAVE RECOGNIZED HIM!  But they didn’t.  And the reason WHY they didn’t is to be found in that key verse that I told you about that says, “Wisdom is proved right by her deeds”.  So, what does that verse mean?  Well, Saunders says that “The phrase wisdom is [proved right] by her deeds’ means that actions and outcomes reveal, confirm, and vindicate what counts for wisdom, [meaning] God’s will and way.  Jesus has just recounted the deeds that define his messianic identity, and [the deeds that] reveal the power of God.  Are these really just the work of a carouser bent on breaking social mores, or do they demonstrate divine power and express the intimate connection between Jesus and the Father?”  [2]

Worldly wisdom is centered on worldly thought.  Those who the world accepts as wise are those who understand the world’s ways of doing things… of succeeding, of acquiring, of mastering.  We exalt the rich who master the stock market or who build great buildings or who hold high office while we disregard the way that these same people mistreat others or foul the environment or twist the Word of God to suit their purposes.  But here is the thing about worldly wisdom.  The ways of worldly wisdom are someday going to disappear in a flash.  One moment someone is affluent and respected, with assets and possessions that boggle the mind.  And then suddenly, they will find themselves standing completely empty handed before God with nothing of heavenly value to show for their lives.  My friends, TRUE wisdom comes from God.  Again, Chelsey Harmon tells us that, “True wisdom is proven by what the person does with their life—not their ideas, not their opinions, not their twitter threads or TikTok videos, not their Instagram inspirational photos and captions, or Facebook comment diatribes.  Do they join in to whatever it is that God is doing, or do they sit out and curmudgeonly pout about what God is doing?”  [3]

            The Bible tells us that the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God.  Because in God’s kingdom, what matters is not what one acquires but how one lives their life.  Are we loving God?  Are we allowing our love for God to manifest itself in our love for others?  Do we live as if every person matters?  Do we live in a way that reflects the fact that no one person is any more important than anyone else?  That no one person is more worthy of love or compassion or justice than anyone else?  These are the things that matter to God.  The wisdom of God is, at its core, all about His children learning how to create a community of love, of compassion, and of justice.  And the wisdom of God teaches us that the creation of this community begins with us… begins with His church living in ways that exhibit His love, His compassion, and His justice, to the world.

            Our passage this week closes with Jesus saying a prayer.  “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.  Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.”  There are those in this world who imagine that they are something; that they have some standing before God due to their self-proclaimed righteousness or their self-proclaimed goodness.  Then there are those who recognize their complete inadequacy before God. 

            I read a great thing this week about the parable of the woman who was caught in adultery.  Jesus said to those who had gathered to stone her to death for her sin, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.  What Jesus knew was the fact that the woman needed grace, but that the Pharisees also needed grace, and so did the gathered crowd.  The only difference between them was the fact that the woman’s sin had been revealed and the sins of the other’s remained hidden.  Jesus refused to play the “which sin is worse” game.  Instead, through His answer, He revealed the fact that ALL who were there were in need of God’s forgiveness… all of them.  Romero commented on the parable, saying, “The woman never defended herself.  She never argued her case.  She stood with nothing to offer except her need.  That is exactly where grace meets every one of us.  The gospel has never been about presenting God with OUR accomplishments.  It has always been about receiving what Christ accomplished for us.  Empty hands are the only hands capable of receiving grace.  [4]

            The “children” in Jesus’ prayer are those with the empty hands.  They are those who recognize their need before God and accept God’s forgiveness and grace and with gratitude.  They are those who follow as Jesus calls them to follow, redefining their understanding of the world and accepting God’s wisdom as the guiding principle in their lives, allowing the Spirit to transform them into people whose hearts look like God’s heart.

            When we seek God’s wisdom… when our lives and our actions are centered not on the latest shiny object but on the needs of others, and on the call of the kingdom, we will find a satisfaction and a fulfillment in our lives that will never, ever, be found by those who are seeking the wisdom of the world.  Riches, possessions, power, influence, status, all of these things will eventually be rendered moot because they will be of absolutely no value in God’s kingdom.  And the world’s wisdom that says that the acquisition of these things is life’s ultimate goal… is a lie.

            The truth is that the ultimate goal is love.  And those who accept that wisdom… those who live lives of love, love for God and love for others… lives that reveal a heart that God has filled with His love, and His compassion, and His justice… these are the little children to whom Jesus refers.  And these are the little children to whom Jesus will say, “‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”

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[1] Chelsey Harmon, Center for Excellence in Preaching, Commentary on Matthew 10:40-42

[2] Stanley P. Saunders, Preaching the Gospel of Matthew: Proclaiming God’s Presence, Pg. 106

[3] Chelsey Harmon, Center for Excellence in Preaching, Commentary on Matthew 11:16-19

[4] Brian Romero, The Brian Romero Podcast

June 28, 2026

Matthew 10:40-42

            This week’s lesson continues for the third week, a part of a discourse where Jesus is instructing the disciples as He is about to send them out as apostles… as messengers for the first time, sharing the Gospel, teaching, and healing.  And while the story of this sending is reported both in Mark’s chapter 6 and in Luke’s chapter 9, there is an interesting difference in the way that Matthew tells this story.  Where the other synoptic Gospels focus on the particulars of the apostle’s mission, Matthew is more interested in showing how Jesus instructed the disciples about the importance of the mission, and about the importance of persevering through difficulties to ensure the success of the mission.  In Mark and Luke, the emphasis is on how the apostles are to go about their ministry, but in Matthew, Jesus just seems to be mainly concerned about preparing the apostles emotionally for their task, rather than being overly concerned about the logistics.

            And I believe that the reason for this is because Matthew, in telling this story, was understanding the fact that his words would speak to a much wider audience than just his late first century readers.  This entire discourse, encompassing part of Matthew chapter 9 and all of chapter 10 is written to speak, not only to those first century apostles, but to speak to us as well.  In fact, Matthew’s teachings on the words of Jesus here could apply to everyone who has ever worked to share the Gospel and His words are still completely relevant today.  My Lectionary Commentary tells us that, “Matthew makes no mention of the mission itself… whether the Twelve ever went… or what their mission experience was.  The effect of the omission is to highlight [Jesus’] speech as a direct address to [all of Matthew’s] readers.”  [1]

            In short, this discourse appears to be directed to all who share the Gospel.  And in today’s reading Jesus concludes His discourse with some very important information for His disciples, including us modern disciples.  And I think that there are three different things that Matthew is trying to teach here.

The first thing as Matthew begins this lesson is, he tells us that Jesus said “whoever welcomes [the Apostles], welcomes Him, and whoever welcomes Him welcomes the One who sent Him.  When we blend last week’s reading into today’s reading, we find a contrast that is implicit in Jesus’ words.  Last week’s story revealed Jesus instructing the disciples on how they may face opposition, and so the corollary here is the fact that those who do not welcome the Apostles, reject Jesus and reject the Father as well.  And so, the way that those with whom WE share the Gospel respond to us, is, in itself, their direct response to Jesus, and ultimately is their direct response to the Father.  For good or for bad, their response to OUR words is going to reveal their heart. 

An important part of this lesson is the realization that how someone responds to our words is not in our control.  It is not our responsibility to convert ANYONE.  It is simply our responsibility to be faithful to share the Good News when we are blessed with opportunities to do so.  I can tell you from my own personal experience that the one person who is most responsible for me having become a Christian has no idea of the impact that his words and his witness have had on my life.  We lost touch with each other before I became a follower of Jesus.  But even though my friend, Roy was never able to see the fruit of his faithfulness, I am so grateful that he was faithful to his calling… because he planted the seed, and years after he did that, God provided the increase.

The second thing that Matthew teaches us is that Jesus invites us to consider the reward that awaits the faithful.  And anytime that Christians speak of reward we are treading a fine line.  Because the mission of sharing the Gospel is absolutely not a mercenary thing.  We are not in this for the reward.  We share the Gospel out of gratitude and love.  Gratitude and love for God, who has called us… and forgiven us… and has made us a part of His eternal family.  And also, out of love for those with whom we share these words of life.  We WANT them to find what we have found.  We WANT them to be adopted into God’s eternal family.  We WANT the joy of knowing that this beloved person with whom we speak, will be in loving fellowship with God, and with us, for an eternity. 

Think of the person that you love the most and tell me whether or not the idea of eternal fellowship with them is worth taking the time, and the effort, and the risk, to share the Gospel with them.  How could we not?  Last week we sang the song, “On My Lips” and part of the verse says, “How can I stay silent when I hear you call my name?”  [2]  God loves us, redeems us, and reconciles us to Himself.  And then, God asks us to let our love for Him manifest itself in our love for others.  In a giant reversal of the world’s ways of doing things… in a rejection of selfish motives and selfish actions, we share the Gospel out of gratitude and love.  Nevertheless, the Bible speaks often about reward, and Jesus does invite us to consider the fact that our work WILL be rewarded. 

            In today’s story, Jesus elaborates on this idea, saying that “Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.  And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”  And so, we find that God honors and rewards those who helps or receives His messengers.  The reward for being a prophet is the same as the reward for one who honors the prophet.  The reward for being a righteous person is the same as the reward for one who welcomes the righteous person.  And even the one who offers simple hospitality to one of God’s messengers will not be denied their reward.

            And this brings us to the third thing that Matthew is teaching.  Andy Davis speaks of the emerging theme of the church as the body of Christ, saying, “[T]here is one body, one mission, one advancement of the kingdom, but not everyone has the same role.  There are some that are called to be apostles, and then there are some that are called to just give a cup of cold water to an apostle, and neither one loses their reward.  We see in seed form, the beginning of the idea of the complex body of Christ, how not all of us are called to the same function, but all of us are able to be rewarded by faithfulness to that [to which we are called].  The critical feature is not how much important work we do for the kingdom, it is how faithful we are to follow the leading of the Spirit and engage in the task that God has called us to do.  [3]

Now, it’s important that we remember that we cannot use this as an excuse not to speak up; not to be faithful to bear the Gospel if that is what we are called to do.  We do need to learn to be sensitive to the voice of the Spirit and when the Spirit calls, we need to be ready to answer that call in any way that we are able.  But… quoting Davis again, “[L]et no one despise any support ministry in this church.  Let no one elevate any other ministry to this high place as though it’s the key thing in the church.  There is no one key thing in the church.  The key thing is to do what God has called [us] to do.  If He has given [us] a cup of cold water, and [we] throw it to the ground to go be an apostle, [we’ve] sinned against God.  It’s not what He’s called [us] to do, give the cup of cold water.  If on the other hand, [we’re] called to be an apostle, and [we] instead trade it so that [we] can give out cups of cold water, [we’re] not following God’s pattern.  It is God who has arranged the body and all the rewards are given according to faithfulness to what He’s called [us] to do.”  [4]

I want to be as clear as I can be.  On that day that each of us was redeemed… On that day that God reconciled Himself to us and said to us, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.  I have called you by name, and you are mine”.  [5]  We have become a part of God’s eternal family, and as a responsibility that we share as members of that family, we are called to LIVE as members of that family.  And a part of that is sharing in the responsibility to bring to others the Good News that God is seeking to reconcile THEM to Himself as well…  And there IS no reason to be afraid.  God Himself, through His Holy Spirit will call you, will instruct you, will guide you, and will give you the words to say, so that you don’t have to worry about a thing.  Our only responsibility is faithfulness.  Our responsibility is to allow God to shape our lives and our hearts in such a way as to make His priorities our priorities.  Our responsibility is to be faithful to hear and obey the Spirit’s call, and as I said before, to allow our love for God to manifest itself in our love for others.

My friends, a few weeks back we talked about the difference between being a disciple… being a διδάσκω (dee-dás-kō), which is the Greek word meaning a student; and being an ἀπόστολος (a-pasta-las), the Greek word meaning a messenger, or one who is sent.  WE are a sent church!  We… each and every one of us are, or at least will be at times, apostles!  We… each and every one of us are being sent, by the Spirit of the Living God, into the world, as bearers of the Gospel.  We, each and every one of us are called to bring this Good News to our friends, and our families… to our co-workers and to our acquaintances, to bring the Good News that God’s fondest desire is that each and every one of His beloved children will be reconciled to Him.  The Good News that God desires, through our faithfulness as we share the Gospel, that God may be able to say to each one of those with whom we share these words of life, that “He has called them by name, and that they are His”.

Elisabeth Johnson asks us the following questions: “What would happen if we stopped expecting people to come on their own initiative through our church doors, and instead took seriously our calling to bring the gospel to them?  What would happen if we truly believed that we bear the presence of Christ to every person we encounter, in every home, workplace, or neighborhood we enter?  What would happen if we saw every conversation as an opportunity to speak words of grace, every interaction as an opportunity to embody Christ’s love for the neighbor?”  [6]

The words of Jesus that Matthew has shared with us over the past three weeks are, as Andy Davis so keenly observed, our marching orders.  They are words that Matthew gives to his readers of all times and places, the encouragement to be the sent people… to be the sent church that God has called us to be.  Let us recognize our responsibilities as those who have been made one with Jesus, to carry forward the mission that He began, that He assigned to the apostles and that He now assigns to His church… to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth.  And let us be faithful to do that in whatever way we may be called.  Whether that way be boldly preaching the Gospel… or boldly sharing a cup of cold water.

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[1] Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa, & Newsome, A Lectionary Commentary based on the NRSV-Year A, Pg. 386

[2] Darren Morehouse | Ross Parsley, © 2004 Integrity’s Hosanna! Music

[3] Andy Davis, TwoJourneys.org, A Cup of Cold Water for Christ’s Messengers

[4] Ibid

[5] Isaiah 43:1

[6] Elisabeth Johnson, WorkingPreacher.org, Commentary on Matthew 10:40-42

June 21, 2026

Matthew 10:24-39

            There’s an old bumper sticker that I remember seeing here and there.  I don’t know where it came from, but it was quite common for a while, and the bumper sticker said, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it”.  And as much as I appreciate the thought that we accept God wholeheartedly at His word.  O, how I wish that life was that easy.

            You see, sometimes discerning the word of God may not be quite as simple as choosing a particular text and then saying, “This is what I believe”.  And today’s story is a great example of how much work actually needs to be done to try to understand what it is that God wants us to learn.  In today’s text Jesus says, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth.  I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”  So, is Jesus condoning violence here?  Can we read this passage as support of countless “holy” wars throughout history that have killed thousands and thousands of innocent people?  Can we use this passage to justify an attitude that separates God’s beloved children into us vs. them?  The text, if we read it on its own, almost kind of appears to endorse that, doesn’t it?

            And maybe a cursory glance at this text might be sufficient for one to accept the idea that we are somehow sanctioned in our contempt for the enemies of God, but how does the Christian who is earnestly seeking truth reconcile this passage with Jesus’ statements from the Sermon on the Mount that the peacemakers are blessed by God?  That anyone who even so much as calls another of God’s children a fool, is in danger of the fires of hell?  That we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us?  For centuries, critics of Christianity have pointed to conundrums like this and have called them inconsistencies or have submitted them as proof that the Bible is full of errors and contradictions.  But the real truth?  The real truth is a lot more complicated.

            There is no part of the Bible that stands alone.  No one would ever assume that they know a person after just hearing that person say one single thing.   Getting to know someone requires a much fuller understanding of who they are than that which could be gleaned from a single sentence, or even a single conversation.  In the same way, every single passage in the Bible can only be rightly understood in the context of the witness of the entire Bible.  And if two parts of the Bible present contrasting, or seemingly contradictory information, then we should sit up and take notice, because it’s a pretty good bet that there is probably something really important buried in these seemingly contradictory statements, there is probably some nuance about something that God wants us to know and to understand. 

And the good news is, God has provided a way for us to interpret the Bible with as much accuracy as the quest of the mortal mind to understand the eternal will allow.  And that method, is the life of Jesus Himself.  The Bible tells us that Jesus is the living Word and that means that Jesus is the Bible personified.  And so, if we want to understand the Bible, we need to understand it always in the light of Jesus’ life, teaching, and example.

And so, today we look at this difficult reading, and we want to understand the truth that is being revealed by Jesus’ words.  And the first thing that we will need to do is to understand the context into which Jesus was speaking.  And today’s reading begins right in the middle of instructions that Jesus is giving the apostles as He is about to send them out for the very first time to spread the Gospel themselves, to drive out impure spirits, and to heal every disease and sickness, just as Jesus has been doing.  And lest the disciples think that this is going to be easy, Jesus warns them that there will be those who will oppose them.  And He lets them know that some of that opposition is going to come from uncomfortable places… from parents and siblings, from relatives, and from best friends.  Jesus also warns them that, just as He has faced persecution, they will also.  And that that persecution may very well be severe… and as it turned out for all but one of the apostles, that persecution was ultimately fatal. 

There was no way for Jesus to sugar coat the difficulties that the apostles, and many like them, would eventually face.  But the entire future of God’s plan to forgive humanity and to reconcile humanity to Himself… God’s plan to save literally billions of people, rested on the shoulders of those few apostles.  And so, Jesus wanted to reassure them that the risk and indeed the eventual cost would still all be worth it.

A few weeks ago, we spoke about our future.  NOT our earthly future, but our heavenly one.  And we spoke about the fact that God deeply desires that each and every one of us would walk with Him, and that we would talk with Him, and that He would tell us that we are His own.  We spoke about returning to that place where Adam and Eve were before the fall; where God walked and conversed with them just as casually, and as naturally, as if you and I were having a conversation.  The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived the things that God has prepared for those who love Him.”  It is an astonishing future that awaits us.  Not our earthly future, but our heavenly one.

As Jesus was speaking with the disciples about this, He already KNEW the glories of heaven.  He had been there.  He already knew the future that awaited the apostles when they would eventually come into their reward.  And so, Jesus wanted to help the apostles to understand, as He did, what it was that awaited them.  He wanted to give the apostles the strength to endure.  He wanted to give the apostles a certainty in their commitment to bringing the Gospel message.  He wanted to give the apostles an encouragement to persevere in their task to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth.  And so, Jesus reminds them that, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it”. 

So, we find that the context of this passage is Jesus, quite bluntly, warning the apostles about the difficulties that lay ahead so they wouldn’t be blind-sided… so they wouldn’t be discouraged when opposition arose, even if that opposition came from those with whom they were closest.

The second thing that we need to look at is how does the text fit into what we know of Jesus’ life, teaching, and example.  It doesn’t take a ton of studying the New Testament to realize that the overarching force driving Jesus’ teachings and actions is love.  In fact, Jesus plainly stated that the single, most important Law is to love… to love God and to love others.  And so, as we study the Bible, we really need to proceed from the assumption that any interpretation of any passage from the Bible requires the premise that the thought behind that passage is rooted in God’s love.

Now, we also see that Jesus is uncompromising… but He is uncompromising in a way that is very different from what we would typically expect to see from someone who we would consider to be uncompromising, or how WE might choose to be uncompromising.  Because Jesus’ steadfast refusal to overlook anything which is harmful to His beloved children is deeply tempered, first by an understanding that sin is unfortunately inevitable in humans and second is also tempered by a compassion that causes Him to fiercely love the sinner. 

When correction comes from Jesus, that correction, no matter how harsh it may seem, is also rooted in love.  His corrections find their foundation in His fundamental desire… His fundamental mission, to reconcile humanity with the Father.  And so, we also need to evaluate individual passages in the Bible according to how that passage fits into God’s loving mission of reconciling His beloved children to Himself.

And so, with this in mind, let’s look again at today’s passage.  As Jesus is sending the apostles out to do the absolutely critical task of introducing people to the Gospel, which is the first step in one becoming reconciled to God.  Jesus lovingly reminds the apostles that the same opposition and the same animosity that they have seen directed towards Him is going to be directed to them as well.  It’s a fair warning… it’s a truthful and accurate description of what the cost of discipleship is going to be.

Then Jesus tells them that there is nothing that is concealed that will not be made known.  Jesus is assuring the apostles that the work that they will do as a part of God’s plan of reconciliation will be validated by God Himself.  That the hidden agendas of those who oppose them will be revealed as the selfish ways of a people who have rejected God in favor of following their own self-serving, sinful path.  And that an eternal future of blessing awaits those who are faithful, while an eternal future of regret awaits those who reject the Gospel and mistreat its messengers. 

But why do people reject the Gospel and mistreat its messengers?  It’s because the Gospel message, at its core, is radical and countercultural.  The Gospel presents a serious danger to this world and its ways of doing things.  The Gospel is a rejection of the idea that any one person is more important than any other one person.  It’s a rejection of the idea that some people deserve to have more than others.  It’s a rejection of the idea that some people have a right to demand to be served by others.  It’s a rejection of the idea that some are worthy of love or respect or compassion and that others are not.  And the more the Gospel intrudes on the world’s ways of doing things, the less effective become the world’s ways of controlling people, and exploiting people, and using people.  The more the Gospel intrudes on the world, the greater the cries for justice will ring out.  And so, even though the world may claim to be righteous… even though the world declares itself to be just… even though the world may claim to be “doing God’s work”, the Gospel speaks truth to the powers of this world and undermines those claims as it unequivocably declares the worth of every single one of God’s beloved children, each of whom bear His image.

Here, Jesus gives encouragement to the apostles to persevere in their work, even when the world opposes them.  Because the work that they will do transcends anything that this world has to offer.  “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me,” Jesus said,  “and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.  Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.  And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

Our story today teaches us the fact that we, as believers, need to learn to view our lives in an eternal context.  We… just like Jesus, and just like the original apostles are carrying a message that is unpopular and is threatening to the world’s ways of doing things.  But it is also a message that is the single most important thing that anyone to whom you speak it will ever hear.  It is a message that reveals the difference between eternal life and eternal regret.  And the single most loving thing that you can do for every friend, for every relative, for every co-worker, for every neighbor, and for every acquaintance is to share with them these words of life.

Yes, we are hesitant to do that.  Every single one of us, myself included.  Because we understand the risk.  We understand the risk that someone may think less of us because of our belief.  We understand the risk that someone may be offended by our words.  We understand the risk that our words could possibly  “turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”  But my dear friends, the Gospel is too important to be whispered in someone’s ear, the Gospel must be shouted from the rooftops.  And we… WE are the ones who are being called to shout.

June 14, 2026

Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23)

            It’s a small thing really.  The NIV translates the Greek of verse 35 as “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.”  But the Greek text repeats the word “every” for emphasis… it’s EVERY town and it’s EVERY village, and He is healing EVERY disease and EVERY sickness.  It’s like Jesus wanted to make sure that He didn’t miss anyone.  Osborne tells us that, “Jesus’ ministry is completely comprehensive; He has come for every person and ministers to everyone with whom He comes in contact.  [1]

And we can look at this, and we can see how Jesus spreads the Gospel through His actions.  But honestly, I think that what’s going on here goes much deeper than just the spreading of the Gospel… as important as that is.  Our text tells us that Jesus had compassion on the people, and that His compassion was due to the fact that He recognized that the people were “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd”.  Jesus is looking at people with real problems… medical issues, debt, and poverty… people who were marginalized, and exploited, and taken advantage of, people who were, above all, in need of salvation, and they were all powerless to help themselves, and Jesus SAW them.  He saw their despair and He saw their helplessness, and over and over and over again, Jesus miraculously healed, miraculously provided, and miraculously made whole that which had been broken. 

            I don’t know if any of you have seen any of James Cameron’s Avatar movies but in those movies, in the Na’vi language of the people of Pandora they have a phrase that translates into English as “I see you”.  But it’s meaning to the Na’vi people is far more than the meaning that we would attach to  that phrase.  A Reddit poster on the Avatar page gives this excellent definition, “’I see you’ goes far beyond physical sight.  It means seeing someone’s true essence, understanding their soul, and accepting them completely.  It is a profound spiritual acknowledgment of another being’s existence, value, and interconnectedness.”  And while I think that it is possibly a little silly of me to use a quote from a science fiction movie in a sermon, I can’t think of a better way to describe the compassion that Jesus had for those to whom He ministered…those sheep without a shepherd. 

            Our story today tells us that Jesus preached in the synagogues and taught of the Kingdom of God, but I can’t help but think that the driving force behind all of the miraculous healings and all of the miraculous provision, and all of the miraculous wholeness making, was this deep and intimate compassion that Jesus showered upon those who were hurting or in need.  Jesus truly saw the depth and the breadth of those needs.  And through His actions, Jesus consistently addressed both physical and spiritual needs.  Jesus did not see the filling of either of those two things as being complete without the other.

            Danny Zacharias tells us that, “Depending on our church traditions and the nations we reside in, gospel work that focuses on healing and justice can be suspect; seen as “social justice” disconnected from the proclamation of the good news.  Similarly, some ministries focus their work entirely on the teaching and proclamation of the gospel with very little thought toward justice and healing.  Jesus shows us that the work of the compassionate shepherd is holistic and integral; the preaching of the gospel is never separated from the embodied work of the gospel to bring healing and wholeness.”  [2]  What Jesus is really doing here is exhibiting the love of God through His compassionate care for others. 

Next in our story, Jesus does something truly amazing.  He turns to the disciples and He tells them that “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”   And He asks them to pray that God will send workers.  And I would like for us all to listen carefully to what follows, but before I do, please let me explain something, and the explanation will also serve as a bit of a hint about what is coming.

            Last week we talked about the Greek word, διδάσκω (dee-dás-kō).   διδάσκω is the word that we translate as “disciple”, and a disciple is one who learns… a student.  The Greek word ἀπόστολος (a-pasta-las) is transliterated into the English word “apostle” and means one who is sent… a messenger.  Did we catch the difference?  διδάσκω is a student and ἀπόστολος is one who is sent.  So, Disciple and Apostle are not the same thing, these words have two different meanings.  Now… Matthew 10 verse 1 says, “Jesus called his twelve disciples, His twelve διδάσκω to him and He gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.”  And then, in the very next verse Jesus says, “These are the names of the twelve apostles, the twelve ἀπόστολος”.  What just happened?

            As Jesus gave His students the power and the authority to do exactly the things that He had been doing, the disciples ceased to be the students and instead became the messengers; the apostles.  And the thing here is, what Jesus was passing on to them was more than just His power.  Jesus was charging them to have the same compassion, the same concern, and the same ability to SEE others that He Himself had exhibited.  Jesus wasn’t sending the apostles out to show off some new-found skills, He was sending them out to love as He loved… to be so moved by the hurting and the needs of others, that the apostles also felt compelled to heal and to help and to make whole.

            In our story today, Jesus had first asked the disciples to pray for God to send workers to the harvest, but then, almost immediately, Jesus turned around and asked the disciples to be the answer to their own prayers.  Michael K. Marsh says, “He’s telling his disciples to align their lives with their prayer.  If we are going to pray for the pain and needs of others… and [of] the world… then we also need to give our hands and feet to our prayer.  We need to embody and enact our prayer.  We too must be a part of the answer to our prayer.”  [3]

            This command that Jesus gives to go and to have compassion and to make disciples is an ongoing thing.  We are no less called to spread the Gospel as we go about our daily lives than Peter and Andrew and James and John were.  It is this very thing to which God has called us, but here, in today’s story, we gain a deeper understanding that, just as love was the driving force behind Jesus’ actions, so also must love be the driving force behind the actions of the original apostles, and so also must love be the driving force behind the things that we do. 

            As much as we would love for our beloved church to grow, that is not our reason for sharing the Gospel.  We share the Gospel because we love those with whom we speak and wish, with all of our hearts, that they would find the love of God in their lives, just as we have found the love of God in ours.  As much as we would love for our beloved church to be an active participant in the feeding of the hungry, it’s not for our church’s benefit that we contribute to the programs that feed the hungry, or that we may directly contribute to those in need.  We contribute because we are grieved by the fact that people are hungry or are in need, and we seek to love them by fulfilling those needs.  And as much as we would love for our church to advocate for justice in this unjust world, the cause of justice is not just another way that we seek to benefit our church.  We advocate for justice because, as believers, we know that justice is nothing more than love in action.  And that we need to love the marginalized and the disadvantaged, and the exploited by seeking justice.

            We know that Jesus, when asked what the most important commandment was, He responded by saying “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.”  And then, Jesus tells us… plainly… that, “^[All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” 

            The foundational command is for us to love.  At the very core of who we are as believers is this compelling need to love others.  And our story today shows us exactly what this means.  Our story shows us  that love is a verb, not a noun.  Our story shows us that the way to love is to recognize the needs of others and to act to address those needs in whatever way we are able.  Now, please remember that God doesn’t expect us to do things that are not in our capacity to do, but God does call us to use our time and our resources in ways that glorify Him by serving others.  Again, quoting Michael K. Marsh, “Here’s why I think all this matters.  I think we often misunderstand God’s kingdom as an escape from the brokenness and pain of life.  That’s not the kingdom.  The kingdom is a deeper engagement with… and a response to… the brokenness and pain.  If the kingdom of heaven is to come it will come through us and [through] our response to the suffering and pain of [this] world, this town, and one another.

            In today’s story Jesus tells His followers that “The kingdom of God is at hand”.  What did He mean by this?  Well, let me ask this… what exactly IS a kingdom?  A kingdom is a place where the will of the king is done.  A king, or a queen, will decide something that they want to do, determine a course of action, for better or for worse, and then expend whatever resources are necessary to accomplish their goals.  God’s kingdom is present when God’s will is done.  God’s kingdom is present when we love others.  Scott Hoezee says,  “[God’s] kingdom is present wherever Jesus nurtures certain behaviors and lifestyles that we call the fruit of the Spirit.  The kingdom is present wherever people pour water over the heads of babies or take bread and wine to their lips all simply because Jesus told us that this is the way we are to act in remembrance of him.”  [4]  The kingdom of God comes near in the actions of those who have compassion on the hurting and the helpless.

            This call has been passed from generation to generation for over 2,000 years and the call has never changed.  Share the Gospel by loving and serving others.  My dear friends, Jesus SEES the hurting and the helpless.  He SEES us.  Let us also SEE the hurting and the helpless, and let us bring the Gospel to them, by loving them.

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[1] Grant R. Osborne, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Matthew, Pg. 364,365

[2] Danny Zacharias, WorkingPreacher.org, Commentary on Matthew 9:35-10:8

[3] Michael K. Marsh, InterruptingTheSilence.com, Fields of Pain: A Sermon on Matthew 9:35-10:8

[4] Scott Hoezee, CEPreaching.org,, Commentary on Matthew 9:35 – 10:8