Tasked with Net Work--July 31, 2026

Tasked with Net Work--July 31, 2026

[Jesus said:] “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 13:47-50)

All right, let's face it: this is a pretty harsh-sounding story on the lips of Jesus, and we might not actually want to explore it any further, because it seems so violent, hopeless, and literally damning.  Many of us heard this parable as part of a longer passage this past Sunday in worship, and I'll bet a good many of us put it out of our minds immediately after, just because it is so troubling.  

And maybe in particular, this passage just seems so different from the other kinds of stories Jesus tells--ones which are more open-ended, hopeful, and redemptive.  How does an illustration that concludes with bad fish being thrown out and "the evil" being thrown into "the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" come from the same storyteller who dared us to imagine a long-lost son being welcomed home despite all his failures and disrespect for his family, or the lender who cancels astronomical debts at the drop of a hat?  How can the same Jesus who boldly declares that God "is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked" in the Sermon on the Mount also depict people being thrown like rotten fish into the fire or the trash heap? It's understandable, then, why we might want to put these verses out of our minds and only focus on the stories that don't make us so uncomfortable.

So, fair warning: if you keep reading, we'll be resisting that urge and digging deeper into this story of Jesus rather than ignoring it or pretending it isn't there. And like a wise Bible teacher has said (I think it was Renita Weems), we will attempt to wrestle with this text like Jacob and not let go until it blesses us.  This is your last chance to close the tab, swipe to another post, or move on with your day. Here we go.

Still here? 

Ok, well, I think there are two things about this parable that need to be said, while admitting that the imagery of comparing anybody to a rotten fish makes us squirm.  The first is that this story is ultimately about the triumph of good over evil.  Does rottenness get the last word at the end of the day?  No--not at all, Jesus insists. For folks in Jesus' audience, who saw daily evidence of the cruelty and corruption of the Roman Empire, or the crookedness and cheating of tax collectors from among their own people, or the frequent hypocrisy of the Respectable Religious Leaders, it sometimes had to look like wickedness was invincible and inevitable.  If all your life, you've seen crooks get away with their schemes and brutal tyrants go unpunished and unthwarted, it is actually a word of hope to have Jesus say, "When all is said and done, their violence and cruelty will not get the last word.  And their rottenness will not ultimately corrupt or contaminate what is good and beautiful and worthy."  Despots and dictators like to imagine that they will reign forever and their legacies will be eternally enshrined in marble statues, triumphal arches, and engraved stone monuments--and here Jesus dismisses all of them like bad fish.  If you have been suffering under the bootheel of some wicked empire, it is deeply good news to hear Jesus say they will not rule forever.  They do not have God's endorsement or approval, no matter what they say, and God will not let them get the last laugh.  In a time like ours, too, despots and autocrats around the world often seek to break the spirits of their critics and subjects so they will give up on hoping that things could be different or better. And over against those efforts, Jesus' story insists that in the end, justice will be done, wrongs will be put right, and rottenness will not ruin goodness forever.  When we feel ourselves tempted to give up into despairing cynicism about the world, Jesus' story says, "Every cruel Caesar, every dictator, and every tyrant who thinks he's the Big Fish will eventually be tossed into the dustbin of history, don't you worry. They will not hold power or threaten you forever."  And on the days when we are at our most jaded, we need that assurance.

The second thing I think we need to see in this parable is that despite Jesus' insistence that evil will not triumph in the end, he is equally clear that is it not our job to weed out or destroy the bad fish ourselves.  Sorting out who are "the righteous" and who are "the unrighteous" is not our prerogative, much less dispatching the wicked and segregating out the good.  That is decidedly God's role, and God will use God's own heavenly host ("the angels") to do the work of sifting and separating when that is to be done.  It is not ours to resort to cruelty in order to get rid of the cruel, or to employ brutal violence in order to rid the world of the brutal and the violent.  It is up to God, both to identify evil and to dispose of it, which takes those tasks entirely out of our hands.  

And at least a part of what this means is that God is willing to live with the world as it is, in the mixture of goodness and badness together, for the present time, rather than to wipe out the whole thing in the name of throwing out the "bad fish" right now.  If you are the fisherman casting your nets into the open water, the first priority is catching whatever you can. While you are out at sea, the thing to do is just haul in as many fish as possible.  You want to get as many good fish as possible, not spend your time tossing bad ones back right away.  You can wait until you are back at the docks to worry about that.  And in Jesus' telling, if God is like the fisherman, then the immediate moment is just a time for pulling in as many people as possible--now is not the moment for zapping people, smiting people, or even labeling people as "unacceptable" or "unworthy." At the present time, the priority is reaching as many people as possible.

In this regard, the parable of the good and bad fish is much like Jesus' parable about the wheat and the weeds growing together in the same field.  Yes, Jesus assures us, there will come a time when the weeds will be pulled up and sifted out so they don't get mixed up with the good wheat.  But in the meantime, God is willing to live with wheat and weeds, "good" and "bad" together, in the world, for the sake of keeping the good.  And in that story, too, Jesus emphasizes that when the time for sifting and sorting comes, it is not our job, but God's to do.

That point is critically important: Jesus never gives his disciples authority to decide who's "in" and who's "out," or to label who is "worthy" and who is "unworthy" of God's care.  After all, the person I am certain is a hopelessly unrepentant sinner might turn out to become a dedicated witness of the gospel (ask Saul of Tarsus, aka the Apostle Paul about that).  And on the flipside, the folks who present themselves as the models of public piety might really be the religious fakers and hypocrites Jesus was constantly warning us about.  God isn't fooled, and when the time comes around for putting fish in the right bins or cutting down the harvest and sifting out the weeds, God is perfectly capable of handling that job, thank you very much.  Jesus knows full well that we (especially we Respectable Religious Folks) have a way of deputizing ourselves to rid the world of those we deem irredeemably evil, and he puts a stop to it with this parable.  Jesus has not given us permission to wipe out  indiscriminately the people we think are wicked or terrible, nor has he authorized us to label people into piles of "righteous ones" and "evil ones."  That's important to say, because history is tragically full of episodes of people using their power to kill, remove, or harm others that they have labeled "wicked" or "evil" and done so by telling themselves they have God's endorsement to do so in the name of "righteousness."  From the Crusades to the Inquisition to the Doctrine of Discovery that led to the colonization, dehumanization, and extermination of peoples in North and South America, to the Holocaust, to wars today fought in the name of "getting rid of those evildoers" we have been telling ourselves we had God's support to vanquish our opponents because THEY were wicked and WE were good--because THEY were the bad fish and WE were the ones (we told ourselves) authorized to sort through the catch in the nets.  We were wrong.  Jesus does not give us this authority; it is God's and God's alone.

In that light, this story is actually meant to put a check and a hold our impulse to do violence to others in the name of religion or righteousness.  As Blaise Pascal put it, "People never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." But if we actually listen to Jesus, precisely in this story, it becomes clear that God does not authorize us to destroy our enemies or wipe out those we have labeled as "wicked" or "pagan" or "unrighteous" out of some sense of being authorized to rid the world of evil. God is still committed to putting the universe right at the last, and God will indeed deal with evil in God's own way and time--but God has not authorized the followers of Jesus to launch violent crusades to wipe out the ones we think are "unrighteous." God reserves the right to turn even the staunchest opponent into a disciple, after all, and God gets to be the One who decides how to deal with human beings at our worst.  Taking this story of Jesus seriously will actually pull us back from committing monstrosities in the name of fighting monsters, and from doing evil ourselves in the name of fighting supposed evil.  We are entrusted at most with net work, not with fish sorting.

That may not make this parable a warm and fuzzy one for us, but it does tell us two things we deeply need to know for this moment in history.  God is still committed to the triumph of good and that evil will not get the last word, but that is entirely God's call for how to accomplish it, not ours.  We have hope in God's promised victory and a world put right, and we are humbled by Jesus' story to learn that we are not the ones deputized to sort out who is "good" and who is "bad." God has chosen to love us, after all, even at our worst.  Knowing that will always put a story like this in a different light.

We step out into the day now equipped with assurance that God will put things right at the last, and with the humility that God has not delegated it to us to throw anybody away like bad fish.  At this point of the voyage, at most we are just called to help pull in the nets.

Lord God, work out your victory over evil in whatever ways you see fit, and enable us to trust in your ways.

When You've Found 'The One'--July 30, 2026

When You've Found 'The One'--July 30, 2026

[Jesus said:] “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it." (Matthew 13:45-46)

When I heard these words of Jesus, which continue a set of parables that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, one question forms in my mind: How do you know when you've found "The One"?

Do you know what I mean?  Even keeping the literal imagery of pearls from Jesus' story, how would know you had found "The One" right pearl that was worth selling everything from your list of assets in order to buy it?  How would you know, after having browsed the wares of other dealers in other marketplaces, or after seeking for pearls yourself among the oysters, or traveling to some distant bazaar in search of rare treasures, how would you truly know that this one, the one right in front of you, is the one worthying of emptying your wallet and closing out your bank accounts in order to possess it?

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know much about pearls and how to choose the best ones, but I do know what it is like to ask the question, "How will I know this is the right... (house, job, person to marry) to choose?" My guess is that you do, too.  You may well have looked at several options for a house to live in, touring the choices, looking at school districts or tax rates, comparing resale values or convenient access to shopping, and had to decide, "Which one is the right one for me?"  After all, when you are looking for a home, chances are that choosing one means not choosing all the other options.  To say "YES" to House A means you are saying "NO" to Houses B through H on your list of candidates.  Or when you are looking for a college to attend, a job to accept, or a location for your business, you go through a similar kind of discernment. And you will likely ask yourself, "How do I know which is the right one to pick?"

And of course, anyone who has been in a serious romantic relationship, or even thought about being in a relationship, at some point asks, "How will I know this is 'The One' for me?"  In 1964, Betty Everett offered her approach to an answer: "If you want to know if he loves you so, it's in his kiss... (shoop shoop)." Other people might say, "You know you've found the right person when you can picture yourself growing old together." Maybe, it's "the person you can't live without." Or, like Billy Crystal says it in When Harry Met Sally... "When you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible."  Find the person who does that, and you know you've got "The One," according to Harry's logic.  Implicit in the question seems to be an awareness, though, that when you have found "The One," you are also letting go of having the same kind of relationship with other possible candidates.  Marrying one person typically means, as the old vows go, "forsaking all others."  There is, in other words, a cost to choosing someone to be "The One." At the very least, it typically means you are not building your life with other romantic interests.

So maybe you and I haven't ever been pearl merchants before, but chances are that we do know what it's like to wonder how we will know "the right one" to choose in some other area, from vocation to residence to romance.  We know that sometimes the simple act of choosing one means letting go of all the other options. 

And I think that sheds some important light on the way Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven here in this parable--and about the costs we might incur by spending our lives walking the Jesus way.  There is indeed a cost to following Jesus, as we even noted in yesterday's devotion with the similar parable about the man who buys the field with the buried treasure in it.  But in this similar story, you get the sense that somehow this particular pearl merchant knows, the moment he finds "The One," that this one is special.  Somehow, when you know that you've found The One you've been looking for all along, it doesn't bother you at all to know that you aren't buying any of the other pearls on sale behind the jewelry counter.  To choose the pearl of great price might mean you can't also purchase the ruby in the corner display or the emerald and topaz earrings in the window, but none of that matters, because you have found what you were looking for.  The cost is an opportunity-cost--that is, by choosing A you are not choosing B.  But if A was what you were looking for, then you would gladly forgo any of the other options around, because you've found the think you were seeking!

In the same vein, I don't know anybody who has fallen in love who then pouts at the thought of getting to be with the person they love rather than someone else; when you love someone, you are glad to be with them, after all!  I think that's the sense in which Jesus speaks of the cost of seeking the Reign of God.  It's like falling in love--and when you have fallen in love, you realize at some point that this is the person you are going to be spending your life with, as opposed to someone else or in some other life.  That is a cost, in a sense, and yet it is one you would gladly pay, because you've found the one who you want to spend your life with.  In a similar way, to discover the beauty of the kingdom way of life means realizing it comes at a cost: living by Jesus' pattern of unconditional love, grace toward the lowly, mercy for stinkers, generosity toward others, and welcome for strangers means you are giving up other ways of spending your life: ones centered on greed, animosity, and fear, for example.  Choosing one rules out the others, and yes, that can feel like a cost.  But it is also the life that really is life--it's like knowing you have found "The One."

That's it: in Jesus, we have found "The One" we were looking for, even if we didn't realize we were looking or know ahead of time how we would know. And when it does actually dawn on us that we have been embraced by the love we needed, we will gladly quit running down all the other dead-ends that were never going to fulfill us. Call it a cost if you like, but I think it is more honest to say it's like realizing that, because you've found The One you want to spend the rest of your life with, you now want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible.

And indeed, the life Jesus gives us, the one we call "eternal," begins now.

Lord Jesus, help us to see what we have found in you and to gladly spend our lives walking with you in the world.

All In--July 29, 2026

All In--July 29, 2026

[Jesus said:] “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and reburied; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." (Matthew 13:44)

I used to think that Jesus was only saying that it's worth any cost to get to participate in God's kingdom.  But after all these years, perhaps with fresh ears, I am hearing something else... something more.

I don't think that the earlier interpretation was wrong, per se.  It is certainly true that being a part of God's Reign and Jesus' beloved community are worth whatever other sacrifices, losses, or challenges we might endure.  And to be sure, Jesus does often talk to his disciples about "counting the cost" in advance of following in his footsteps. He unabashedly tells some would-be followers that they need to first sell all their possessions, give the money to the poor, and then come and follow him. He regularly mentions that being his disciples could mean losing relationships with our families, being ridiculed by our neighbors or persecuted by the Respectable Religious Leaders, or getting labeled as a threat by the political powers of the day.  He says quite plainly that if we want to follow him, we'll need to be ready to "take up the cross daily"--a phrase that certainly resonated with the shame of execution at the hands of the Empire when Jesus said it.  

And yet, as Jesus also often points out, for whatever we might risk by following him, we are also given what the apostle Paul calls, "more than we can ask or imagine." The point at which we lay down our lives in love following Jesus is the very same point at which we find our lives and discover that God has held onto them beyond the grip of death.  Like Dietrich Bohoeffer put it so powerfully during the era of the Third Reich in his well-known book, The Cost of Discipleship, "Grace is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."

So, yes, definitely, Jesus does tell his followers that being his disciple is something like selling all your possessions in order to buy the field that has a secret buried treasure in it.  It is both costly and worth the cost, according to a wide variety of passages in the Gospels. And we would be selling a counterfeit gospel if we didn't make both halves of that statement clear: yes, following Jesus means a profound and radical reordering of what matters in our lives, and that will almost certainly mean letting go of things we used to think mattered (money, status, power, reputation, among others). And also yes, letting go of those things actually brings us closer to "the life that really is life" as 1 Timothy puts it.  Both are true, and as disciples of Jesus, we are constantly dared to stake our lives on the pair of them at the same time. Yes, yes, and yes, to all that.

But let me also suggest another truth implied by Jesus' thought experiment here about the man who buys the field with the treasure: this is also a picture of God's choice to lose everything for the sake of redeeming... us.  

Let me say that again, just to make sure the point is clear.  I don't think Jesus is only talking about what it could or might or likely will cost us to follow him (and why it's still worth it after all). I think Jesus is also saying that God knows it will cost everything--even the life of the Beloved on the cross--in order to redeem us, and yet God is willing to give it all up in order to restore us and bring us back home.  No matter the cost, God is all in.

And lest you think I'm making this all up out of whole cloth, consider how often Jesus talks about his own awareness that he is headed to the cross.  Jesus never talks to his disciples about what costs they might face for following him with the logically prior statement that Jesus is going to be paying those same costs himself first.  He tells his disciples that he has come to lay down his life "as a ransom for many," and that only by being lifted up on the cross will he "draw all people to myself."  He describes himself as being like a grain of wheat that is buried and broken open when it is planted in the ground, in order to bring forth a harvest of many more grains.  

The rest of the New Testament also points in this direction.  Paul, for example, will talk about how God in Christ chose to empty himself in becoming human, suffering death like us, "even death on a cross." Paul will also talk about Jesus as the one who "became poor that we might become rich in him."  And because Christians have confessed from the beginning that Jesus is the fullness of God in a human life, then what Jesus does... God does.  What Jesus suffers, God suffers.  What Jesus bears as a cost, God bears as a cost.  

In other words, before we even get to talking about the sacrifices we might be expected to endure for following Jesus, the Gospel's claim is that God already chose to lose everything--even God's own life, at the cross--for the sake of having us.  We are not only the man who sells everything to buy a field with a buried treasure; we are the treasure for which God was willing to lose everything else in order to claim us.  God went all in... for us.

I think this is an appropriate way to understand this parable of Jesus, in addition to hearing it as a call to us to count the cost of discipleship, because of the way Jesus begins this parable.  As with so many of his little vignettes and stories, this one begins, "The kingdom of heaven is like..."  In other words, Jesus is telling us a story about how God reigns, how God runs the world, and what sort of priorities are set in the Yahweh Administration.  We are so quick to turn Jesus' stories into morality plays about our behavior or fables about what we have to do to get into heaven, but Jesus himself seems to think his stories are less about our actions and more about God's.  They are less about moral lessons and more about God's surprising way of ruling the universe.  And over and over again in Jesus' stories, we see God, not as a tyrant or emperor amassing vast wealth for himself, but more like a servant-leader who risks everything, who sweats in the toil of planting a field, who runs after the long-lost son, who leaves the ninety-nine sheep for the sake of one lost lamb, and who gives away a fortune to people who don't seem to have earned it.  God's way of reigning isn't about God getting "richer" but about God giving everything away for the sake of bringing us to life.  We are worth the cost to God, despite our unloveliness and frequent hard-heartedness, because God has decided we are.  God has made the reckless financial decision to sell all the real estate and liquidate the stock portfolio for the sake of buying the one plot of ground where we are, so that we can belong to God forever.   We are the treasure in God's eyes, as much as it is also true that God's kingdom itself is a treasure worth our sacrifice as well.

When you start from that point, everything changes, doesn't it?  When we start with the claim that God things you are so precious that God was willing to give up everything for your sake, and for the sake of the world, then yes, it makes perfect sense also for us to say back to God, "I will give my whole life back to you in loving response." God doesn't demand we lose what is valuable to us in order to test our commitment or prove our devotion. Rather, our willingness to lose whatever we might have to surrender is the second motion of a two-step dance that begins with God already losing everything for the sake of redeeming us first.  Our whole life of faith flows from God's choice first to redeem and save, no matter the cost--even when God knew the cost would be a cross.  We don't start with a requirement to prove to God how committed we are, but rather with the clear statement of what God has already done to reveal God's commitment to us first.

God is all in, so to speak, for the sake of having you.  You, dear one, are the treasure in the field.  Once that sinks in, how can we not be led to risk losing whatever it might cost for the sake of echoing that kind of love first shown to us?

Lord Jesus, remind us of the cost you have endured willingly and lovingly for our sake, so that we will be assured of our preciousness in your eyes, and will find the courage to lay our lives down in love for you as well.

Under-the-Radar Signs--July 28, 2026

Under-the-Radar Signs--July 28, 2026

Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened." (Matthew 13:33)

The smallness is not a defect. The quietness is not a liability. The ordinariness is not a sign of unimportance, but of just how vital a thing can be to the miracle that is life in this world. These are the things Jesus chooses to describe how God's Reign permeates all of the universe--like yeast hidden in the flour that will become this evening's bread... like a tiny seed planted in the soil... like the unassuming labor of a someone farming or baking.

We tend to assume the loudest, the largest, or the showiest things are the most important. And, to be sure, when it comes to making bread, of course, the flour is essential, too. But in this parable which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, the yeast does something amazing precisely in its smallness. It gives itself up to make the rest of the bread (all the non-yeast ingredients, like, say, those three measures of flour) more like itself. The yeast's self-surrender makes the bread into bread. And its smallness allows it to do that. Reverse the proportions, say, with three cups of yeast to one pinch of flour, and you would have a disaster, not dinner.

It seems important that Jesus chooses images like yeast to give us glimpses of how God's Reign operates in world. He is never sloppy with his illustrations; he never blurts out an analogy only to have to re-think it later. So if he is intentional in his storytelling, that means the smallness and the quietness are not only purposeful choices in his parable, but that they are purposeful on God's part, too. It means that God chooses to reign in the world in quiet ways. It means that God's ego does not need to be the showiest, or the flashiest, or the loudest... it means that God is willing to work without getting credit for it--that the work itself is worth doing, regardless of whether we properly applaud God for the labor. A farmer, after all, keeps planting the crops even if the neighbors don't give a standing ovation--the work is worth doing, because the family and neighborhood need to be fed. The woman who heads the household bakes the family's bread even when she is taken for granted by the family and the kids just assume there will be food for their bellies, and she does it, without waiting for praise, because she loves them and wills what is good for them.

The smallness of the yeast, and the quietness of the mixing, these are the choices God makes as well in reigning over the universe. And maybe that even changes our assumptions about what it means to "reign." If we assume that leadership requires loud boasting or showy pageantry, we'll miss the point of what it means to talk about God's kind of reign or kingdom. But a farmer is clearly the "leader" who orders and directs things in the farm, and the Mama of the house is clearly charged with being the head of her household, and yet they do their work behind the scenes. Their leadership does not require saluting nor fanfare, but rather looks like self-giving love, love that is secure and confident enough in itself that it does not need constant approval from others.

And this is the key, Jesus says, to how God rules the universe. God is not at all like the arrogant Caesars whose images were carved all around the world during the days of Jesus. Nor does the Almighty need buildings built in God's honor, monuments erected for God's glory, or God's name chiseled in stone. God rules more like yeast quietly mixed into the flour in order to give itself away that all may be fed.  It turns out, according to Jesus, that God continues to provide for the life of all creation--like a farmer planting the food his family and friends will eat at harvest, or like a matriarch of the household baking quietly in the early morning--simply because of God's love and care for all the world. This is what God's reign looks like: not the flashy, brutal spectacle of the Roman Empire, but the way a mother heads up her household by making decisions and doing the work to feed her children. It is strong, without being coercive. It is leadership without arrogance. It is vital work without needing to be loud or noticeable.

This is how God runs the world. And if we will be people of this God, then, we are free from needing to make ourselves look tough or strong or powerful or to get fanfare for the good work to which we are called. We can simply do the good things we are made for, just because they are worth doing, and because we love the people for whom we do them. We can spend the time, the energy, and the attention today, just because the world God loves needs our labor... so that all may be fed.

You bear the under-the-radar signs of God's reign into the world today. Let your mere presence in the world be a reflection of God's goodness. And whether anybody knows to give you credit or praise for it, let your presence in the world make a difference for good today. That's what the Kingdom is all about.

O God, work for good in your world in us and through us today.

Birds in Our Branches--July 27, 2026

Birds in Our Branches--July 27, 2026

[Jesus] put before [the crowds] another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31-32)

There are plenty of mornings I'd rather stay in bed--all day if possible--rather than get up, get cleaned up, get dressed, and go to work. Sleep is comfortable that way.

And, yes, there are surely plenty of days when I can see something looming on my calendar--an uncomfortable conversation I'll have to have in a meeting, or a difficult visit, or a tedious task that I wish I could ignore--and I would rather look for an excuse not to go, not to meet, not to do the difficult thing. Procrastination is comfortable that way, too.

I will also gladly concede that I am lucky enough that my kind of employment doesn't pay me based on the hours I have punched in on a time-clock, so it would be all too easy to convince myself that bailing out on work, or playing hooky from time to time, would have no negative consequences on my paycheck. That temptation is all too comfortable as well.

But I am learning something from Jesus about shrubberies--like, say, a mustard bush--that is reinforcing for me why I don't blow off work. See, as Jesus tells it, maybe the mustard plant isn't just putting in its time growing and blossoming in a field somewhere for its own sake--maybe it's there for the sake of giving shelter to birds. And maybe I'm not just here on earth for my own entertainment or good times, and maybe my job is more than just a way of paying for dinners out and making car payments. Maybe my reason for showing up in life isn't all about me--maybe I'm here just as much for the sake of others whose lives are made better by what I bring to the world. And maybe that's what you're here for, too--maybe all of us are mustard bushes whose existence makes a home for birds looking for a nest in the shade.

I've got to be honest with you. For a lot of my life, I only heard this parable as a sort of lesson that "small starts can have big conclusions," since Jesus starts off his object lesson focusing on the small size of a mustard seed. But the more I think about it, the more I realize the importance of the the end of the scene: Jesus doesn't just say, "And the shrub grows large even though it started small. The End." After all, bigger isn't necessarily better in life (despite the insistence to the contrary of the Super-Size option at the drive through window). No, Jesus doesn't just assume that more is always better, or that larger things are inherently more successful than smaller ones. Rather, Jesus sees the growth of his imaginary mustard bush in the service of a wider purpose: the bush doesn't just grow larger for its own sake, but for the sake of giving shelter to birds.

In a similar way, oncologists will remind us that a glob of cells that just keeps growing larger and larger isn't necessarily a sign of health--it may be a tumor. The difference between cancer and regular human growth is that my body's cells grow and multiply for the purpose of serving the whole body, while a cancer only grows for its own sake while slowly killing the rest of me. That's not what impresses Jesus about the mustard plant--he sees that its existence is always about more than itself. When a mustard plant is doing its "job"--being a mustard plant--it is able to give itself away more fully for other parts of creation, like, say, some vulnerable birds looking for a place to safely lay their eggs.

And that, I am coming to see, is true in our work lives as well. It is really easy to see our jobs as just a means toward the end of having more money--money which is either necessary for paying our bills and keeping a roof over our head, or money that we treat as "disposable" for fun stuff, rock concerts, weekend getaways, technological toys, or home improvement projects. But I think that misses something essential about the purpose of our work, whether paid or volunteer, whether entry-level or top-tier manager, whether minimum-wage or six-figure salaries: we show up for the sake of the people whose lives can make a difference in, not simply for our own sake. Frederick Buechner once famously wrote that "the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet," which is a way of saying that our labor isn't just about being well-paid or enjoying our jobs, but about doing something that the world around us needs to have done. If your job makes you a lot of money, but you are doing something that doesn't actually improve anybody's life or, metaphorically speaking, create nesting space for vulnerable birds, you're missing the point of life.

And then, for a moment assuming that you can see something meaningful in the work you do, the reason to keep showing up at that job, on the easy days and on the hard ones, too, is not just "because I might get caught or punished or fired if I play hooky," but "because what I do makes a difference in someone else's life." It's because other people count on us to do what we do--not just bosses or managers or HR reps, but the people we serve in whatever kind of work we do.

So on those days when the voice at the back of my head sounds particularly tempting as it says, "Skip out early today..." or "Just don't come in, and do something fun for yourself instead--no one will notice!" I get a new picture in my head, thanks to Jesus. I picture a big ol' shrubbery, doing what God has called it to do simply by continuing to thrive so that birds can make nests in its branches. And if even a humble weed of a plant like a mustard bush fulfills a role for the sake of other living things in God's creation, then my presence in the world can be a gift for the sake of others around me.

You matter. What you do--paid or unpaid, public and prestigious or humble and unseen--matters. You have the capacity to create a refuge for birds in your branches. You have the capacity to do what you do with the love of God for people whom God loves--even if you never learn their names and they never know yours. You have the calling to keep showing up in a culture that is constantly flaking out and letting us down, because there are people who are counting on your gifts, your ability, your presence, and your time to make their world brighter.

On the days when there's not much else persuasive enough to get me out of the insular comfort of staying in bed, that's what gets me to put my feet on the floor in the morning of a new day. That's what keeps me driving in to work rather than sneaking to the movie theater or skipping out early (or for that matter, getting drunk off the clock either, since the people who rely on me need me to be able to function when I show up, too). The question isn't "Could I get away with it?" or "How much would anybody really notice if I blew off work for today?" but rather, "Who are the birds that might need me to offer my branches for shelter--and does it matter to them if I show up today?"

Yeah--it does.

Go and be the blessing to others today, in whatever capacity given to you, right where God has planted you.

Lord Jesus, give us a deeper awareness of our purpose for the sake of others today, and let us see the beauty and dignity you give to our callings.

Everyday A Bow Tie Thursday--July 24, 2026

Everyday A Bow Tie Thursday--July 24, 2026

"For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Romans 8:24-25)

On Thursdays, I wear bow ties (well, except for when I'm on vacation).  My curious fashion schedule has come to be, for me, a regular, disciplined practice of hope. Let me tell you why.

A bit of backstory: years ago, when I was a seminary intern (this would be more than twenty years ago now), my supervising pastor would not only wear bow ties regularly, but also would occasionally recite the advice that had been given to him even further back in the past about the method of tying them.  This mentor of mine would say, echoing the one who had first said it to him, that to tie a bow tie, "You take the one end and bring it through a loop that doesn't exist yet, but which comes into existence in the act of pulling it through." And like an epiphany, there it was.  

That is exactly what it is like.  It took me some years after I was finished with my internship and had begun my own ministry in congregations before I dared to teach myself how to actually tie a bow tie on my own neck (much less wear one in public). But one day I found myself holding the flared fabric, staring into a mirror, folding the end, and doing exactly what my mentor and his previous fashion adviser had said long before: I was pulling the end through a loop that didn't exist yet, but which was coming into existence as I pulled it through.  The pulling of the end starts tightening the loose loop that becomes the center point of the bow, and what do you know, you end up with a nicely tied bow tie in the end.  Almost like magic.

But more than that, you end up with a pretty potent parable of the nature of hope--at least hope in the New Testament sense, which is always richer, stronger, and deeper than mere wishful thinking.  We are accustomed to using the word "hope" pretty loosely in everyday speech. "I hope it doesn't rain" is really a way of saying, "I'm afraid it will rain."  "I hope my team wins" isn't much of a statement of confidence but a helpless posture of watching something happen and knowing I am not contributing to victory or defeat from the stands.  But hope in the sense the apostle Paul uses it is something stronger, something active and daring.  It is a step into the future which does not exist, but which comes into existence as we are stepping into it.  It is Abraham and Sarah going to a land on which they have never stepped foot before, because they dare to believe a promise that this will be a home for their descendants) who are not yet born.  It is Jeremiah buying a plot of land while the Babylonians are banging on the gates in the shadow of exile because he is convinced God will keep the promise that there will one day be a homecoming from Babylon and one the deed will be worth something.  It is the long-time resident of a run-down neighborhood in the city who starts fixing up the front porch and planting flowers in the hope that it may be the catalyst that spurs a whole neighborhood revival.  It is the way parents offer the world to their children, as the poet Maggie Smith puts it in her poem, "Good Bones," "This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful." To live in hope is to step forward into a future that does not yet exist--like a leap of faith--knowing that the stepping itself helps to bring the future into existence.  The loop that doesn't exist yet comes into existence as you pull the end through it.  The reality that hasn't come into being yet starts to become more than a wish or a hope when we start acting like it is indeed becoming a reality right now.

In this passage from Romans, which concludes the reading many of us heard last Sunday in worship, Paul is envisioning something bigger than a spruced-up neighborhood or a neatly tied bow tie.  He is envisioning a world made new.  He is envisioning God's promised "restoration of all things."  He is picturing creation redeemed and restored, including each of us, who have pinned our hopes on Christ to raise us to new life beyond death and to put all things right in a world of disorder.  And of course, because the world is not yet put right and there is still a great deal of crookedness, hatred, and rot all around us, Paul's vision is for a world we cannot yet see.  The world isn't like that... yet.  In Paul's day that was plenty obvious: a brutal empire ruled by a succession of egocentric and petty tyrants was conquering the entire known world.  There were dangers and disasters all around. And even apart from the Romans, there was a constant threat of violence and starvation.  That doesn't sound like a world made new.  That doesn't even sound like the "golden age" of eternal peace that Caesar kept bloviating about.  It sounded like a miserable, sad, and broken sort of world.

That is to say, things haven't changed much.  Sure, the names on the letterhead come and go, but the same dynamics of empires and emperors has continued for the past twenty centuries since Paul wrote.  Sure, we have cures for some diseases--but we also have a host of new ones.  Certainly, we have made some societal improvements from the slavery and conquest of the first-century Roman Empire... but we have also found new ways to build empires and reduce people to virtual slave labor in sweatshops, prisons, and labor camps.  In other words, to look around us today or read the day's headlines, it sure doesn't look like we are getting any closer to a world put right or a creation made new.  And it can feel like Paul's counsel to wait with hope can feel like just a religious spin on saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if things got better?"  But that doesn't actually do anything, nor does it guarantee that the world actually will get any better.

This is why we need the robust, fierce sort of hope that Paul has in mind.  Paul has in mind not a resignation to sit back and twiddle our thumbs wondering why the world doesn't fix itself, but a present-tense beginning to live in light of how things will be at the end of the story.  We live each day like it's Bow Tie Thursday: we take the end that is in our hands, and we bring it through a loop that doesn't exist yet, but which comes into existence as we pull it through.  So the question for us each day becomes, "How will the world be in God's new creation--and how can I begin to live in anticipation of that new reality?"  That's what Christian hope is really like: not vague wishing, but present action in light of a promised vision of the future.

For example, will I be driven primarily by fear, or by love, in the fullness of God's Kingdom--and what is to keep me from living that way now, ahead of time?  Will the hungry be fed in God's Reign--and if so, could my help to feed hungry people now point ahead to that reality, and maybe offer a glimpse right now of the banquet God is preparing?  Will the lowly be lifted up--and if so, how can I be a part now of raising up the folks who have been stepped on, and maybe look at the ways my own comfort and privilege have been a part of what held them down before?  In the promised future, will our peace come from the constant threat of mutually assured destruction, or from learning to lay down our weapons and bring our enemies to sit at the same table with us?  In God's new ordering of things, will there only be good things for "Me and My Group First," or will there be abundance enough to share all around--and if so, could I begin to live with that kind of open-handed generosity?

Each of those might be a small difference in the way you spend your day, but they are all about daring to living in the present in light of an envisioned future that begins to come into existence as we dare it.  It is a daily pulling of the end of the tie through the loop--the one that doesn't exist yet but which will come into existence as we pull it through.  It is beginning to practice what Dr. King called "the Beloved Community" even when the world is still full of meanness and hostility, because we know God's intention is to bring such a community into existence.  All of that is genuine hope--and it is never just a mental exercise or thought experiment. It is the daily choice to live now in light of God's promised future.

Today, practice such hope--and then we'll see what happens.

Lord Jesus, enable us to day to step forward into the future you are bringing about, regardless of how different it looks from the conditions of the world around us now.

A Bigger Hope--July 23, 2026

A Bigger Hope--July 23, 2026

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies." (Romans 8:22-23)

It's not just about fire insurance for the afterlife.  It's not just about getting a ticket for the train to heaven.  The Christian hope is about God's promise to make all things new.  And that is so much bigger than the version of the story we are so accustomed to settling for.

These words from Romans 8, which continue a passage that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, remind us that God intends to renew, restore, and redeem "the whole creation," and that in fact the entire universe is aware and "groaning together" in anticipation of that newness.  That way of talking about Christian hope is essential to Paul's way of seeing the world, but for a lot of us church folks, it can sound unusual and extraneous.  If our theology comes from the reductive slogans of religious billboards (and let's be honest, for many of us, that's the messaging we are accustomed to), we might be used to hearing the Gospel as sales-pitch: "Trust in Jesus so that you can get to heaven when you die," or "If you'll pray this prayer, you'll get on the list to avoid hellfire." Those kinds of messages make it sound like Christianity's message has nothing to do with this world and this life and only pertains to your status after death--and therefore, that it's like having an insurance policy.  You know: it's something you should take care of on paper so that you don't have to actually think about it at all in your daily life or everyday routines, but can pull out and dust off in case of emergency.  For a great many folks, this is the version of Christianity they've been sold: Speak these words, and believe these facts about God, and that's it until you get to heaven.  It's a version of the faith that removes everybody and everything else from the equation except Me-and-Jesus, and even Jesus really only shows up enough to tell us, "You're on the list for the afterlife," with a friendly wink, and then disappears.

Well, as I say, Paul would beg to differ. Paul sees these deep connections between our own hope for salvation and the whole world's restoration. In the apostle's mind, you can't have one without the other, because they are all part of the same grand sweeping motion of God to make all things new.  It's not that we don't have hope for life after death--it's that our hope is not about being plucked up "out" of the world to go to a different place, as though the geography were the problem.  Our hope for life even beyond the grip of death comes from the even wider promise of God to bring about a whole new creation.  My hope for life beyond death is possible because God intends to "make all things new" (see Revelation 21, among other places).  It's less about being taken "out" of the world and more about restoring and renewing the world itself as a whole.  That makes sense, too, since my life is inextricably connected to the systems, patterns, and relationships of the wider world: from the water cycle to the air we breathe to the chain between plants and soil and my sustenance.  Just plucking me up out of the world and taking me to another place called "heaven" would be a little like yanking a fish from the river because the river is dirty and putting me in a stark and empty fishbowl; yeah, I mean, I guess a fish can live in a big glass bowl, but it's really meant for the whole environment of other fish, of snails to clean the water, of plants growing at the riverbanks, and all the rest.  Our hope, Paul reminds us, has to be bigger than just that God will yank us out of the river and put us in a tank; it's got to be more like God cleaning up the river until it is a whole new creation, which can sustain all sorts of life. It's about me as an individual, but it's about more than just me, and more even than just "Me and My Group First."  God's intention is to redeem all of creation, to which I belong as well.  I am included, but it's not just about me.

Letting that sink in can change our perspective, if we will let it.  It will certainly change the way we share our faith with other people.  Instead of peddling the gospel as a "sign-on-the-dotted-line-to-get-into-heaven" sort of deal, we'll share the news that God promises to make all things news because God loves the whole world in all of its entirety.  Instead of thinking the promise of faith is that we will get to escape the world and therefore don't have to care about our use of the earth and its resources, we will care deeply now about the world and the way we treat it, because it is the world that God is intent on redeeming. That doesn't lessen our hope--it expands it.  We have settled for so long with a myopic vision of God's love that it can surprise us to hear the Scriptures stretch our field of view wider: God's intention is to renew "all things." It is a redemption that includes us, because we are a part of the "whole creation" that is longing to see a new heaven and new earth brought forth like a baby being born.  The promise is not an escape "out of" the world, but rather a restoration, even a resurrection, of the world. It is indeed a bigger hope than we had been accustomed to thinking about.

That also means that living out our faith will happen in more than just Sunday morning church services.  It will include things we have always done, like prayer and Bible study and song and ritual, but it will also include helping to fix a neighbor's broken front step, cleaning up trash-strewn city lots, feeding hungry neighbors, rebuilding homes destroyed by floods or fires, conserving energy, or raising money for people half a world away to drill a well for potable water.  All of these might be ways of exercising our hope muscles and taking our faith seriously, because all of them are expressions of the same deep confidence in God's wide-reaching redemption.

There will be countless ways of living our faith today, and a great many of them take place outside of church walls.  Where will it lead you today, this bigger hope we have been given?  Where will we practice our belief that God is making all things new?

Lord God, work through us even today in your wider action to renew all creation.