In the Sheer Silence--August 14, 2026

In the Sheer Silence--August 14, 2026

"He said, 'Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.' Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind and earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?'" (1 Kings 19:11-13)

God is everywhere, that much is surely true. And yet it takes a certain kind of vision--what we usually call "faith"--to recognize God in the places that don't seem majestic... or marvelous... or mighty. Anybody can look at a mountain and say, "That is so big and grand--it makes me think that God is big and grand, too." Anybody can look at a glorious sunrise as the glowing orb of the dawning sun scatters pinks and oranges and purples across the blues of the fading night, and conclude, "A beautiful God has created such beauty." Those are all true and lovely observations, but they are also pretty slow and easy pitches right across the plate.

It is harder, however, to recognize God's presence in the ICU waiting room, as nervous relatives pace and sit in awkward silence over bad vending machine coffee, waiting for news and fearing to hear it when it actually comes.

It is more difficult to sense God in a jail cell, or in the rubble where your bombed out village was when the invading army attacked, or in the uncomfortable quiet before an intervention for a family member who is drinking themselves to death.  It is hard to feel God's presence in the midst of absence--the empty chair at the dinner table when someone we love has died, the migrant neighbor who has vanished without a trace even though you knew and recognized them as a good member of your community, the elderly grandparent or aging spouse whose mind is receding into dementia.  Those are all situations in which it is hard to see God's presence, and I'm sure you could add plenty more from your own experience.

And in a culture obsessed with "winning" and "greatness" it is hard to spot God among the losers (or--gasp!--as a loser himself with nail marks on his hands), the left-out, and the least.

We tend to want our deities to show up in obvious ways: with power and glory, and a side of shock and awe. A God who makes an entrance with a whirlwind, or an earthquake, or a fire would command respect and impress the neighbors. But Elijah has been given the peculiar kind of vision that comes with faith, and he knows to recognize God in all the least-likely and unexpected places where respectable deities don't even bother making an appearance. Elijah's God--and ours--has never needed to impress, and so has never been afraid of leaving behind the special effect and CGI and just comes to be with us in silence.  Yes, even in the sheer silence, God is there.

I'm convinced that's because God is less interested in "wowing" us than in loving us, and because God isn't trying to kindle fear in us but to call forth faith in us. And when you are acting out of love, you don't really care whether anybody else thinks you are foolish, silly, weak, or a "loser." You just care about meeting the ones you care about right where they are, just as they are. That's why God shows up where Elijah needs him--in the sound of sheer silence, and then with a voice that asks questions rather than shouting slogans or barking orders.

So God meets Elijah where the poor prophet's weary heart needs God to be--in silence, smallness, and weakness. And for Elijah's part, Elijah dares to believe that God is meeting him there, rather than in all the overtly obvious places that speak of power and majesty, like a wind, an earthquake, or a fire. God is reaching out to Elijah without the pomp and circumstance everyone expects for the divine, and without leading some heavenly military parade to intimidate the fearful prophet into getting back to work. But rather God meets Elijah after all the hullaballoo has come and gone--in the stillness. That's a mark of love, I think. Anger needs to throw plates at the wall or kick the furniture (or if you're God, lob a lightning bolt). Grief needs to scream sometimes. But compassion is able to enter a situation in quiet, because the quiet allows for listening--and sometimes the other person in the room (or cave, in this story) needs to speak. God creates a point in time and space where it is quiet enough for Elijah to say what he needs to say, because God cares for Elijah. Love doesn't always need to go banging around on the pots and pans to get our attention; love can show up without fanfare in the silence.

And Elijah has trust enough to see that silence as a gift of grace. He has trained his peculiar vision of faith so that he knows how to interpret the silence after the noisy things have passed. When it gets quiet, Elijah believes that it doesn't mean God has left and Elijah's missed his chance to say what he needs to say; rather, he believes the silence is God's gift and that God is inviting him into the conversation. And when even the silence itself isn't enough to prompt Elijah to vent what he has to vent, the voice comes with the invitation, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" like a nudge to him that it's now time for him to unburden himself. God creates the gift of a safe space for Elijah to pour out all that he's been keeping in. And Elijah recognizes by faith what God is doing.

A great deal of the Christian faith is that kind of learning how to recognize God's presence in all the unexpected places: in silence rather than noise, in weakness rather than in shows of brute force and raw power, in listening rather than in barking threats or issuing decrees, in the nail-wounds of someone on a cross rather than in the proud mockery of the ones with the hammer. But once we realize that God approaches us in utter love, we begin to see that God really is everywhere--even in places a respectable deity wouldn't be caught dead, like a borrowed grave outside Jerusalem for a couple of days one weekend. Today, then, our task is to learn (or keep learning) to see faith as more than just reciting the approved set of theological propositions, but rather as the practice of learning to see God at work, even where we least expect.

Where might God meet you today?

Lord God, give us the eyes and the vision to see you where you are reaching out to meet us.

Angels All Along--August 13, 2026

Angels All Along--August 13, 2026

At [Horeb, the mount of God,][Elijah] came to a cave and spent the night there. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” (1 Kings 19:9-10)

It can be a lonely job to serve as God's messenger--especially when you are questioning if you even have God at your side.

That's where Elijah is at the start of this scene from 1 Kings, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday.  Elijah is on the run, fleeing for his life, as a result of challenging the king and queen for leading the people into worshipping idols like the Canaanite god Baal.  He feels utterly alone, and with good reason.  After a showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, the queen issued a vendetta against Elijah and essentially put a hit on him as if she were a mafia boss.  Elijah has seen the power of the palace used to kill those who were faithful to Israel's God, YHWH, and he is now afraid that he will be next.  Elijah is afraid, to be sure, but also feels like he is the only one left, as though there is no one else in his corner, since he believes that all the other faithful prophets of YHWH have been killed or secretly driven into hiding.

And all of that raises the uncomfortable question of where God is in the midst of all this.  After all, if God, YHWH, has allowed all these other faithful and true prophets to be killed, is Elijah safe?  Is God on Elijah's side, or has YHWH abandoned Elijah and left him to fend for himself?  From the prophet's standpoint, he certainly feels like he is on his own, without the support of friends and allies, and uncertain about where God is to be found.

So he goes to the one place the old stories talked about meeting God--he goes to Mount Horeb.  Horeb, in case you had forgotten this little detail, was another name for Mount Sinai, the famous summit where Moses had met God in the burning bush (back in Exodus 3) and then later where the Israelites gathered once they had been set free and received the covenant and the commandments carved in stone. In other words, it was THE quintessential meeting place for God.  If God was anywhere to be found, Elijah seems to have told himself, it should be on this mountain.  This was where that other great solitary hero of Israel's legendary past, Moses, had met God and been encouraged to take on a different king, the Pharaoh of Egypt.  This was the place known colloquially as "the mount of God." This was the place where a lonely and despondent prophet would look to find some divinely-given courage and reinforcements.

When God asks Elijah why he has come, it's not that God needs to know the answer. It's that God knows Elijah needs to say it.  He has come a long way--probably between three and four hundred miles--convinced that he needed to get to this spot on the map in order to have his face-to-face meeting with God.  Along that journey, as he got weary, God had sent angels to accompany him (and to cook pancakes for him) and helped him regain his strength to finish the trek. So God has been with Elijah all along, even when Elijah could not feel it or see it--and even when he was clearly being given divine assistance (like angelic short-order cooks) but could not recognize it.  Even when the only thing that seems real to Elijah is the persistent pain of loneliness, God has been with him all along. And yet God knows that Elijah needs to vent the hurt, to name the wound, and to pour out his aching heart--even when that takes the form of accusing God of abandoning him. The living and real God can take such accusations, and does in fact bear them, because that is what Elijah needs.

In fact, I think that's even really what this whole journey has been about:  Elijah goes all the way out to "The Mountain Where People Meet God," not because God somehow requires it, or because God is only holding office hours at Mount Horeb, but because Elijah has convinced himself that's where he needs to go in order to have his one-on-one meeting with God.  God is willing to accommodate Elijah's self-imposed need to go on this pilgrimage, because the important thing for God is to finally get through to him, since he has convinced himself he is otherwise alone and that he can only meet God on the mountain.  In other words, God meets Elijah on the mountain, not because that's the only place you can find God, but because at least at this point in the prophet's life, he has told himself that's where he'll be able to experience God's presence.

Of course, we do our own versions of this, too.  Sometimes we tell ourselves that we'll ONLY meet God if we go on a trip to some special place, whether a famous cathedral, or your old childhood hometown church, or the Holy Land, or your local congregation's Sunday service.  Or sometimes we say we'll only really have an encounter with God if we go on an "official" pilgrimage, like the famous Camino de Santiago in Spain, or to see the sights of a Bible-themed tour, or whatever else we might decide.  Other times, we insist that we've really only "met" God if we had a spiritual "high" or felt something supernatural happen.  Or maybe it's that one spot in the woods, or that place along the shore, where you like to watch sunrises or go for walks. We all have places we tell ourselves (or maybe just hint to ourselves?) are somehow closer to God, or where we have felt a connection to God before... so we go back to them like salmon swimming upstream to get to the old spawning grounds where they were born.  

And while we can certainly encounter God in any of those "special" places (or, as the old Celtic spirituality would put it, "thin places,"), the truth is that God is also already there accompanying us along the way to the Official Place to Meet God, during the whole journey.  God is not only waiting to be discovered at a Special Destination, but goes with us all along the way, even empowering us to keep going on the way, because God knows that sometimes this is what we need... or what we have told ourselves we need.  And in hindsight, we end up seeing that God was with us, sending pancake angels all along, waking us up to eat and drink, encouraging us when we need it, all so that we could finally reach the point where we would be ready to see God's presence (which has been there anyway all the time).

I don't know whether you are feeling like Elijah these days, but at some point we all do.  We will feel alone and despondent, whether because of death or divorce, a move across country, a change of careers, disappointment with church, or some other life-event that shakes us to our core.  In those times, we may well feel like even God's presence is in question. And we may find ourselves going to some place, some particular point on the map, to try and meet the God we are doubting and seeking at the same time.  When that happens, remember what Elijah discovered: the God we are looking for and hoping to meet at Point B is with us all along the way from when we first headed out from Point A.  And that God remains with us, all the while willing to take whatever accusations we can lob, even when we can't feel it or sense it.

Just ask Elijah.

Lord God, help us to know your presence here, and give to us along the way what you see that we need.

Love for the Little-faiths--August 12, 2026

Love for the Little-faiths--August 12, 2026

"When [Peter and Jesus] got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him saying, 'Truly you are the Son of God.'" (Matthew 14:32-33)

Sure, Jesus does amazing things--downright miraculous wonders that boggle our minds and transcend our understanding of the rules of the universe. And yes, it seems that at the end of this story about Jesus walking on water, his disciples conclude that this amazing feat of supernatural ability must mean Jesus is the Son of God. So, indeed, witnessing this wonder led them to conclude something about Jesus' identity; their reasoning seems to be: "Jesus has authority over the wind and waves--therefore he must be divine." But the flip-side is also true: they are learning something about what God is like.

Jesus doesn't only show power in this story--he shows love. When he stoops to rescue a doubting Peter who has begun to sink beneath the waves, he shows compassion and mercy. So this isn't just a story that "proves" Jesus is God because Jesus shows supernatural power over the sea; it's a story that reveals God's care for those who are in trouble (even if they've gotten themselves into that trouble). The "moral of the story" of Jesus' rescuing Peter while walking on water isn't just "Jesus is God because he can do powerful things," but "God is compassionate because Jesus does merciful things." Both can be true at the same time, of course, but we are so quick to equate God with being powerful when Jesus goes to great lengths to show us God's deep kindness. And that may be just what we need to be reminded of. For many of us, our default assumption is that God has power beyond our own; the thing we really struggle to believe sometimes is that God has compassion beyond our own as well.

When the disciples "worship" Jesus, they are certainly showing honor and ascribing divinity to Jesus (after all, the Number One Rule of first-century Judaism is "We don't worship anything or anyone other than God!" so if you worship Jesus, you are making claims about Jesus and God), but they are also making a claim about who God is: God is like Jesus. Jesus shows us God's care for small-faithed doubters like Peter, God's compassion for the harassed and helpless, and God's mercy toward the desperate. Bowing down to Jesus points in both directions--it says Jesus is worthy of the kind of adoration and homage that is reserved only for God, and it says that God is the sort of Person who won't leave Peter to fend for himself when he's gotten in deep water and deeper trouble. In Jesus, God shows love to the little-faiths.

Sometimes, church folk assume that faith in God is mostly about believing that God can do impossible things, when Jesus keeps revealing to us a God who is not merely powerful but merciful. It's true that the ancient creeds of the Christian faith start by professing God's infinite creative power in making the universe, but the real reason the early church spent the time hashing out those documents like the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed was to make it clear that what Jesus is like, God is like. They weren't just saying, "Jesus turns out to have all the powers of God," but also, "God has all the compassion of Jesus, all the way down to the core of God's heart."

So when it comes to a story like this one from Matthew, the takeaway for our faith isn't just "Jesus must be God because he can do things we can't," but also, "God must be like Jesus, including when he pulls little-faithed Peter out of the waves." This scene dares us to believe that God must be Someone who loves and rescues the doubter in the water, rather than Someone who condemns people for inadequate faith. It tells us as much about the heart of God as it does about the power of Jesus.

It's worth remembering that as we head out into the world today. We Christians don't simply believe that God is an all-powerful force who goes around coercing people to do the divine will and zapping people who refuse or fail. We believe that we have seen the fullness of God in Jesus, who saves Peter rather than leaving him in the water as punishment for not believing in him well enough. And believing that, we let ourselves become people who are more interested in mercy than in brute force.

In other words, if we say we believe in the God revealed in Jesus, our faith should make us more compassionate, particularly for the people who have gotten themselves into deeper trouble by their own doing and don't "measure up," rather than more critical and callous. We become like what we worship, after all, so if our faith in God doesn't make us more loving, then our faith isn't really in Jesus, but in an idol of our own making.

What difference might it make for you in this week to let Jesus be both our best understanding of God and our template for love?

Lord Jesus, help us to see the very heart of God in you.

Who's Holding Onto Whom--August 11, 2026

Who's Holding Onto Whom--August 11, 2026

"But when Peter noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, 'Lord, save me!' Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, 'You of little faith, why did you doubt?'" (Matthew 14:30-31)

If you should ever have to jump out of a plane, you are welcome to hold onto the parachute straps with your hands... but that's not what will get you safely onto solid ground. Ultimately, it's not your grip on the parachute that matters, but the parachute straps' grip on you.

As you hurtle through the sky toward the earth, you might be petrified with fear and unable hold tightly to that backpack's shoulder straps. Or maybe you will be so awestruck at the beauty and wonder of seeing the world from up in the sky like that that you don't even think about where to put your hands. Or maybe you would be such a worrier (I think this would be me) that you would keep second-guessing where you were supposed to put your hands and end up moving your grip every few seconds, and end up not holding anything very tightly for very long. Any of these might be possible, and yet the parachute can and does still function, because its ability to gently slow your fall to the ground does not depend on your grip--not on holding the right spot, and not on how tightly you hold. The parachute holds you, and you are saved.

So if you ask me, just before we leap out of the open cabin door on the airplane, "Do you have faith that you'll survive this jump?" the most honest answer I can give is, "I trust the parachute to hold me, even if I don't have great faith in my own ability to hold onto the parachute straps." And that is enough, because it's not a matter of how hard I believe in the parachute that makes it work. Once it's strapped onto me, it will hold, even if I doubt it, and even if I am fidgeting the whole way down.

But--to the extent that I can trust the parachute to hold me, I can relax and let myself be held in the harness and actually enjoy the ride, take in the view, and pay attention to the wonder I am living through while I glide, rather than missing it all because I'm in a panic. I can trust the parachute to do what it is supposed to do, and let it free me--or I can let fear make me miss out, only to discover that none of my frantic fussing made me any safer.

Well, you can see exactly where I'm headed with this little thought experiment, I'm sure. This is precisely where Peter finds himself in the rest of this episode from the story many of us heard this past Sunday. And this is precisely what it really means to be people of faith. To be saved, as this story suggests, is less about how tightly we hold onto Jesus, and more about how assuredly Jesus is holding onto us.  It is a question of who is holding onto whom.

We need to get that straightened out in our minds, because sometimes Respectable Religious Folks make faith sound like an achievement--like it's a skill pertaining to how tightly we hold onto God, or how correctly we grasp theological truths. We turn it into our accomplishment, and we end up saying that we're "saved by our faith," by which we mean that it's our grip on God that gets us to a safe landing. Sometimes you'll hear church folks take that even farther and say that when you pray for healing of a sickness and it doesn't come, that it must be a sign that you don't have enough faith. And sometimes, despite the insistence of Reformers like Martin Luther that there's nothing we can do to earn God's love or achieve God's grace, we turn "faith" into a matter of having the correct answers to a religion exam after death, and if we memorize the right words, we'll get into heaven because of our "faith." But all of that misses the point, truthfully, and confuses the question of who is holding whom in this parachute ride of life.

In the end, faith is about trusting that God's grip on us will not fail or falter, not about how confident we are in our ability to hold onto God. That's what Peter learns here, too. When he steps out onto the waves from the relative security of the boat, it's because he trusts Jesus, not because he believes in his own innate ability to defy the rules of physics and walk on water. And when he starts to sink, it's because he's started letting fear make him panic rather than keeping focused on Jesus, who is worthy of his trust. And when, at the last, Jesus asks Peter, "Why did you doubt?" he's not suggesting that there is a certain quantity of faith that makes you levitate, as if it were happy thoughts and pixie dust that enables the children to fly with Peter Pan. It's a question of "Why couldn't you trust that I would keep you safe? What kept you from believing that I would still hold onto you?" And yet, even that question comes, not as a scolding or a punishment, but as Jesus has already taken Peter by the hand and pulled him back onto terra firma.

We Respectable Religious people can spend so much time policing whether other people are gripping the straps in the same way we are that we end up forgetting that it was never the grip of our fingers that kept the parachute in place. Faith is really about trusting that God holds us, regardless of how tightly or even accurately we hold onto God. Peter learns that in the water and Jesus grabs a hold of him. Maybe we can start this day with that truth already holding us, too.

The thing is, once we realize that it's not about how hard we hold onto the straps, our hands are finally free to do something useful--something that conveys love for the people around us. When I'm done worrying about whether my postmortem theology score will be high enough to get me into Honors Level Heaven, I can use my days and my energy to help a friend, be kind to a stranger, and comfort the heartbroken. Love is possible when I'm finally secure in the truth that I'm held in the harness of God's grace, and at last I can quit fidgeting or comparing myself to the next person and their parachute pack.  A great deal of motion is possible when we are finally ready to let ourselves be held.

Today, then, let's let do just that. Let's allow ourselves to be held in the grip of grace, so that our hands will be free to love the people around us. And maybe our worried minds can relax enough to look around and appreciate the wonder of the view around us on the trip, confident that there will be solid ground to hold us at the time of our safe arrival.

Lord Jesus, hold us and give us the confidence of trusting that you will not let us go, so that we can use our time, energy, and passion for the sake of others around us.

In Peter's (Wet) Sandals--August 10, 2026

In Peter's (Wet) Sandals--August 10, 2026

"Immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, 'Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." Peter answered him, 'Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.' He said, 'Come.' So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus." [Matthew 14:27-29]

The more I think about this story, the more it hits me as one of the most practical, relevant, and immediately useful passages in the Bible.

I'll admit: I didn't always think that way.

This well-known story from Matthew's gospel, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, always used to hit me as completely untethered from my real-life existence and daily routines. I've just never imagined myself in a position where I would ask Jesus to put me in a more dangerous situation like Peter does here. I mean, asking Jesus to order you to walk out onto the water, defying all the laws of physics and everything your whole life (and job as a fisherman!) had taught you about the danger of the open water? Who does that?

And not to pile onto Peter, but this is a completely unnecessary miracle that's being asked for here, isn't it? I mean, when a father pleads with Jesus for help to heal his dying daughter, we all see the merits of the request. When Jesus interrupts a funeral procession to raise a mother's only son back to life and restore a grieving family, we can say, "Yes, this was a good use of Jesus' time and energy." Even when Jesus (goaded into helping by his mother) turns water into wine at a wedding after the wine had run out, you can see the rationale of sparing a newly married couple shame and embarrassment on their wedding day. All of those feel like valid, compassionate, and worthy occasions for a miracle. And then there's Pete here, basically provoking Jesus like a kid on the playground, "Do you DARE me to go out on the water? Jesus, do you DARE me? Huh? Huh?" Somehow it just seems frivolous, even childish.

At least that's how my thinking has often gone with this story. And so every time I've read and reflected on this scene, I've found myself thinking this little episode has nothing to do with our actual lives. None of us are going to be out on the Sea of Galilee with Jesus, after all, right? At no point in your Monday will you be cruising through your to-do list and stop your errands to pray, "Hey, God, just to prove you're real, would you dare me to jump off a cliff and then give the ability to fly so I don't plummet to my death?" No, all of that sounds more like the temptation the devil puts to Jesus in the wilderness: "Why don't you fling yourself from the pinnacle of the Temple, because you know that God will send angels to keep you from even stubbing your toe?" None of that feels AT ALL like the real situations and real problems we face in our daily lives, right?

Except... that maybe we really are put in Peter's situation every day. At its core, Peter's call to Jesus on the water, "If it's really you, Jesus, call me out onto the water with you," is about whether Peter will dare to trust what Jesus says. It's about whether or not Peter will take Jesus' view of the universe more seriously than all the other reasonable voices telling him it's insane. And, from Peter's perspective, it's a matter of saying, "Jesus, if you say I can walk on water, I believe I can, even if everyone else thinks it's lunacy." In other words, the question is whether Peter will take Jesus' word more definitive on his life than what anybody else says about him or "how the world works."

And in that sense, that's exactly what each of us has to ask and answer every morning when we put our feet on the floor to face the day. Will I dare to believe what Jesus says about me, even if the world around tells me differently? Will I dare to do what Jesus directs me to do, even if it runs against the grain of conventional wisdom? Sure, that's less likely to be Jesus literally commanding you to go and step out of a boat and onto some choppy seas. But Jesus does as a matter of fact call us to believe and live in some pretty countercultural ways that sound like nonsense to the rest of the world. "Blessed are the poor?" Yeah, right. "Happy are those who are excluded and left out because they care about justice?" Sounds preposterous. "Love your enemies, and do good to those who would do violence to you?" Sounds as sensible as trying to step out of the boat and walk on water.

And that's just it: maybe we don't realize it because it's happening in our ordinary everyday lives, but we are constantly being dared to take Jesus' claims about us more seriously than what the world thinks is "the way things are." Walking on water is perhaps no more outlandish to the world than loving your enemies, not returning evil for evil, and sharing our possessions with others--all of which Jesus calls us to do, just as clearly as he calls to Peter on the sea. To a world bent on revenge and domination, we are called to answer evil with good and serve all people. To a culture obsessed with getting profits and cutting deals to maximize your own advantage, Jesus calls us to do good precisely to the ones who can never pay us back. To a society that wants to define our worth in terms of our cash value or tax bracket, followers of Christ are dared to believe we are beloved as we are, apart from our money, power, or status. Each of those really is as bold a leap of faith as it was for Peter to step out onto the waves--it's just that we are called to make those steps daily in the course of our ordinary lives.

So maybe we really are in Peter's wet sandals and situation more often that we would like to admit. We're always facing the question of whose voice we will take more seriously--the conventional wisdom that tells us one way of seeing the world, and the voice of Jesus whose vision seems altogether upside-down. It's a leap of faith, but it's a daily leap for us. Maybe Peter's call out to Jesus, "If it's really you..." isn't frivolous after all--maybe it's the vital question we need to ask on this day, too.

Lord Jesus, call to us and remind us who we are as your beloved, so that we will find the courage to live out of step with the world around us.

The God Who Feeds--August 7, 2026

The God Who Feeds--August 7, 2026

 "The LORD is gracious and merciful,
  slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
 The LORD is good to all,
  and his compassion is over all that he has made.
 The eyes of all look to you,
  and you give them their food in due season.
 You open your hand,
  satisfying the desire of every living thing.
 The LORD is just in all his ways
  and kind in all his doings." (Psalm 145:8-9, 14-17)

In the ancient world, most gods and goddesses were thought of a lot like Marvel superheroes these days.  

Typically, whether it was the Roman and Greek pantheon, the deities of ancient Egypt, or the gods of Canaan, Assyria, and Babylon, each divine being had a particular set of powers, traits, and spheres of influence. In our popular culture, we tell stories about Spider-Man and his arachnid-themed abilities, along with Doctor Strange and his magical expertise, Iron Man in his high-tech armor, and Hulk with his brute strength.  In the ancient world, Zeus/Jupiter had the powers of lightning and his famous thunderbolt, Hermes/Mercury had super-speed, Poseidon/Neptune had authority over the sea, and Ra had the sun while Osiris was in charge of death, fertility, and agriculture (quite a portfolio, right?).  It's no wonder the Norse god Thor (god of thunder) fits right in among the Avengers in the comics and movies--both the ancient thinking about gods and the Marvel Cinematic Universe have a similar perspective.

The ancient Israelites, however, had a different take.  The Hebrew Scriptures (what we sometimes also call the Old Testament) don't picture Israel's God Yahweh as limited to a particular theme, domain, or subset of powers.  Israel's God (sometimes rendered as "The LORD" in English translations) wasn't relegated to just the skies or the seas, and didn't have power only over, say, the storms or the fields.  God's jurisdiction did not run out at the crossing of a border from one land to another, or even into the realm of the dead.  The LORD was understood to be the God, not just of "the sea" or "the storm" or "the fields," but of everything.

All of that hearkens back to the ancient story in which God's unique name, "Yahweh," is revealed to Moses.  When God commissions Moses to go back to Pharaoh and demand that the enslaved Hebrews be set free, Moses knows that the king of Egypt will be thinking in terms of the powers-and-themes style pantheon of their gods.  He asks, "Which god should I say has sent me?  What is your name?"  The gist is asking, "Are you the god of sun, or moon, or river, or storm, or agriculture? What specific powers are you going to be leveraging against Pharaoh?"  And God's answer is simply, "I AM WHO I AM. Go tell Pharaoh that I AM has sent you."  The name "Yahweh," of course, turns out to be related to the Hebrew verb "to be," such that God's own name isn't limited to one area of creation or one subset of powers, but is rooted in being itself.  Or rather, all of existence is actually rooted in God.  The God of Israel isn't the God of any one thing, or Lord of any single lone region or sphere of influence.  The claim of the Hebrew Scriptures is that YHWH is "the LORD" of all things.

And yet, here is the wonder: this One God who is Creator and Lord over all things, is particularly concerned with making sure everybody gets enough to eat and generously providing good things to all of creation.  When the poets and song-writers of ancient Israel sat down to describe what God is actually like, they started with the grace, mercy, and steadfast love of God, which takes the tangible, concrete form of daily bread for all.  

And when I say "all," I mean ALL.  These words from the 145th Psalm, which was the appointed psalm for many of us this past Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary, describe God as feeding not only human beings (and all human beings at that!) but all living things in general.  Fish, birds, cattle, snakes, insects, and even light-eating plants--they all are fed and cared for as the ancient poets saw it.  The God who is Lord over the entire universe is not above being the server waiting at table for every creature in all the world. The God of everything chooses in particular to be the God who feeds us.

So what?  

Well, I would suggest that the gods and goddesses of the Greek and Roman pantheons are typically associated with some particular power or skill set in order to make them seem more impressive.  A god who is associated with the raw energy of lightning, for example, seems more dangerous to cross than one who also has petunias and puppies to oversee.  A goddess who controls the moon will be thought to wield more power than one who also has fireflies and frogs in her portfolio.  But a God who is Lord of everything can't just pose for the photo op with the "important-looking" parts of creation.  The God whose name is "I AM" claims responsibility not only for great white sharks and giant sequoias but also dandelions and baby deer.  And yet the God who is Lord of all doesn't have any need to impress, any ego that needs puffing up, or any insecurities to deal with.  If Yahweh really is indeed the God of all things, then such a God doesn't need to worry about coming across as "tough" or "big" or "intimidating." Such a God is utterly free to feed sparrows, tend to sheep, and lift up the lowly and the weak.

It is deeply good news, then, that the God of the Scriptures is described as Lord of all things--because this is precisely what makes God able to tend to each one of us, no matter how small and insignificant in the world's eyes.  Ours is the God who doesn't need to bully us into obedience, but opens a generous hand to give us all daily bread, simply because God is gracious all the way down.

This is the God on whom we call, today and everyday.  This is the God who is in charge of the entire universe: the God who feeds.

Lord God, give us today our daily bread, along with all the hungry creatures you have made, large and small.

An Ongoing Miracle--August 6, 2026

An Ongoing Miracle--August 6, 2026

"And all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children." (Matthew 14:20-21)

Those fragments of fish and broken loaves are not an afterthought: they are a calling card.  The baskets of leftovers at the end of the story we call "The Feeding of the Five Thousand" are not an extraneous detail or a bit of embarrassing evidence that Jesus couldn't properly estimate how much additional food to multiply.  The more I read this story, which we've been exploring throughout this week since hearing it in worship this past Sunday, the more I am convinced that the extra food is part of the point of the whole thing.  The baskets full of leftover pieces are a sign of the way God provides--with such overflowing abundance that no one needs to be left out, and everyone's belly can be filled.

The evidence in the gospels would seem to suggest that Jesus has great precision in directing divine power, and he doesn't miss.  He heals people, like the centurion's servant or the Canaanite woman's daughter, without even meeting them or being in the same building with them, which suggests that Jesus is capable of focusing the healing power of God in exactly the right place for exactly the right person even without seeing them.  When Peter asks Jesus about getting the money to pay the temple tax and Jesus tells him to go catch a fish that will have coins in its mouth, the wondrous fish has exactly the change needed for the tax. Apparently Jesus does not go around producing a fortune in coins on a regular basis--he just does this the one time, with no extra money to spare.  Sounds like he does precisely what he intends to do without excess or shortage.

Now, if that train of thought is correct and Jesus isn't getting sloppy with this miracle of loaves and fishes, then it tells me the abundance that produces twelve baskets of leftovers here in this story is not an accident or a fluke, but a choice on Jesus' part.  He intends to provide such a feast that not only is everyone there on the hillside satisfied, but there is more to be shared and passed around beyond that.  The sharing of good things will continue, and even people who didn't come out to find Jesus that day will be given daily bread, too. The gifts Jesus provides will not be limited just to Jesus and his circle of disciples, or even just to the thousands who came out that day to seek Jesus.  The blessings will overflow wider, further, and bigger... because that is the character of our God.

And in a sense, of course, that is precisely how we find ourselves in this story, too.  This is our entry point into the overflowing goodness of God, since none of us were there on that grassy spot in Galilee twenty centuries ago.  We are recipients of the good gifts Jesus keeps giving, because in a sense, the bread never ran out.  From five loaves and two fish (small enough to fit in your own two hands, probably) to satisfying thousands, and then from twelve baskets of leftover fragments to the ongoing table fellowship of Jesus' followers ever since, we discover that there is a place for us at the table because Jesus keeps providing the food that sustains us.  We are welcome at Jesus' banquet because the meal didn't really end, even after all the leftovers had been gathered up and put in the ancient equivalent of Tupperware take-home containers. 

The same is true for others, too, who have been waiting for their gift of daily bread as well.  There is enough to share with everyone who is still waiting to be invited, waiting to discover a place is set for them, waiting to hear, "Take, eat: this is for you."  And so our calling is not just to be an end-point ourselves, but to pass along what is first given to us. If we take seriously that Jesus could have produced only exactly enough for every person in the crowd and not a bite more, but apparently chose to provide abundantly more so that there were baskets full of leftovers, then we have to believe that Jesus intends for divine abundance to keep radiating outward.  We can't help but conclude that God's way of reigning in the world looks like everybody getting enough to eat rather than someone stockpiling their resources to maximize profits when they sell.  We will see that God's vision for the world is for all to have enough, rather than me constantly defining my success or failure by how I compare to the person next to me.  And where I have more than I need, I will share what has been placed in my hands, since all that I have has originally come from God in the first place.

If the abundance in this story is not an accident but the mark of God's fingerprints, then we will view all the good gifts in our lives as divinely-given signs of abundance, which are not meant to be hoarded but shared.  And we will see the world less as an engine run on scarcity and more as an ongoing miracle powered by a generous God.

How will you and I see the world today?

Lord God, open our eyes to the signs of your abundant and overflowing generosity which are all around us.

Shared Like Broken Loaves--August 5, 2026

Shared Like Broken Loaves--August 5, 2026

"Then [Jesus] ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds."  (Matthew 14:19)

Maybe all we ever do is just to pass along what has first been given to us.

As I keep thinking about this story which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, I am finding that it forces me to rethink my relationship with all the things I usually call "mine."  Maybe none of them are really mine permanently, but rather maybe everything I think of as a "possession" is something Jesus has entrusted to me for the sake of sharing. In other words, what if everything in my life--the money I make from my job, the resources I have at my disposal, the hours of life I get every day, and my particular talents and skills--is like broken and blessed bread that is meant to be shared so all can be filled?

Well, that certainly would change how I think of my stuff, my bank account, my time, and my abilities, wouldn't it? Instead of imagining that all of these are purely "mine" to hoard, to hold onto, and to leverage for maximum profits and my own enjoyment, I would see all of these things as gifts first given by God.  And if all of them have come from God with the purpose that they be shared, then I don't have permission to bottleneck them in my tightly clenched fists.

I mean, imagine for a moment what would have happened there on that hillside in Galilee if one of Jesus' disciples started taking the broken pieces of bread that Jesus was handing out to be passed around and just shoved it all in his pockets or the folds of his robe.  What would have happened if the disciples had said, "Well, he gave this stuff all to US--it must be meant for us to KEEP"?  How would Jesus have reacted if his inner circle of followers would have said, "There's barely enough bread and fish for one person, so I had better just keep this for myself" rather than doing as Jesus had instructed?

I bet you can picture it: Jesus would have asked them, "What are you doing?  I told you that was to be given out to the people!  This isn't just for YOU alone--this is for everyone!"  And pretty soon it would have been clear, I hope, that Jesus was doing something amazing there--providing bread and fish for all the thousands who were there, not just his own little circle of twelve.  When Jesus had the crowds sit down and passed out broken loaves to the disciples, it was clear he meant for them to share them with all the hungry mouths gathered on the hillside.  It would have been obvious that the abundance was meant to be shared, since it was clearly all coming from Jesus' miraculous provision.  And when Jesus puts a gift in your hands that is intended to be passed along so that all can receive its benefits, then you pass it along.  That's clearly what Jesus intends.

So, let me ask this question: why do we think our "stuff" is any different?  Is there anything in this life that didn't first come from God?  Is there any resource--our time, our treasure, our talents, our energy, anything--that isn't first a gift of grace?  Do we miss that truth because we take so much of our lives for granted, or think we are entitled to them?  Did we fool ourselves into thinking that our skills, our ability, our money, our muscles, or our minds were simply our own achievements, rather than having been given to us by God?  And if we can indeed recognize them as gifts of God, then why do we have a hard time considering the possibility that all of our lives are meant to be shared with others, and that their gifts, abilities, time, love, and resources are meant to be shared with us?  

What a beautiful vision of life this story gives us when you think about it this way!  All of our lives are meant to be lived like we are both the crowds being fed and the disciples passing out broken loaves: we are constantly receiving the good gifts that God sends us through other people, and we are constantly meant to give ourselves away for the sake of hungry neighbors around us, too.  In that sense, the feeding of the five thousand is not a holy fluke or a random one-off of divine power--it is the pattern and flow of every day of our lives.

Today, how might you and I do both: to let ourselves receive the good gifts that God intends to bless us with that come through the ability, love, and time of others, and to share with the people around us the gifts that God has placed in our hands?   What if all of our lives are meant to be passed and shared like broken loaves?

Lord Jesus, open our eyes to see all of our lives as gifts from you that are meant to be shared, and open our hands to receive what you have sent others to share with us.

You Give Them Something--August 4, 2026

You Give Them Something--August 4, 2026

When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” (Matthew 14:15-18)

Jesus' disciples don't mean to be rude--they think they are being realistic.

As this scene unfolds from the passage many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, it's clear that Jesus' disciples simply think there's nothing else to be done but to dismiss the crowds who have been listening to Jesus so they can get home and get their own suppers.  This is not a matter of hospitality to them, but of crowd control. Jesus had gone off by himself first, you will recall, and it was the crowds that came out to him seeking his help.  So this was not a matter of Jesus having invited a big gathering for an all-day teaching workshop and then not having thought through how to provide a meal for the attendees. This was more like Jesus had tried to go on personal retreat, was hounded by people who wanted his help, and then decided he would not only cure their sicknesses but also would feed them.  The disciples aren't trying to be rude or bad hosts: they just realize that they are not in a position to do anything to solve the problem of feeding a crowd of thousands.

And in fairness to the disciples, too, the dinner question is not a matter of life and death.  Sure, people get cranky when they are hungry or if their blood sugar drops too low, but delaying an evening meal by having to walk all the way home to eat still seems pretty manageable for most people.  As far as the disciples are concerned, the most compassionate thing Jesus can do right now is just to send the people away so they can all fend for themselves.  After all, he didn't promise a free supper, so no harm, no foul.  The disciples are just trying to be as politely practical as possible when they advise Jesus to dismiss everybody for the night.

Jesus' response to these level-headed disciples is what changes everything.  "You give them something to eat," he says, almost as if he believes it is the most obvious thing in the world.  But the disciples cannot reasonably be expected to have planned for something like this, can they?  When they got up that morning, not a one of them had even an inkling that Jesus would wander off into the middle of nowhere, be tracked down by thousands of people who would then want to hang around with Jesus until sundown.  And certainly none of them imagined that such a large crowd would come unprepared for bringing their own suppers.  But Jesus just looks at them and says, "You feed them." Not because the disciples "owe" it to anybody, but because that is the nature of the Reign of God.  

That's it, I believe.  Jesus' first impulse in view of the hungry crowds is that he and his followers should feed them all, not because there is some rule of social expectation that says they must, or because they have some transactional requirement, but because that is what God is like.  In the kingdom of God, everybody gets to eat.  Throughout the Bible, God's character, from the manna in the wilderness to the story of Elijah and the jar of meal that provided the widow with food through the famine, to the prophets' repeated calls for the people to share their bread with the hungry poor, has always been oriented toward making sure everybody gets enough to eat.  Jesus has come to embody the God of the Scriptures--to show us in his words, actions, and presence, what it is like where God reigns.  So it makes perfect sense that Jesus directs his disciples to feed the multitudes, because they are meant to be learning how to participate in God's reign, too.  They are being formed to act, speak, and think in ways that reflect God's character, by being in Jesus' presence.  When Jesus says to the disciples, "You give them something to eat," it is his way of bringing them into the work that God is doing in Jesus.

Now, as those of us who have heard this story before already know, Jesus will bring something to the situation that is beyond the power of his disciples on their own. By Jesus' power, at the breaking and blessing and sharing of the loaves, there will be enough not only to feed the thousands there, but twelve baskets full of leftovers, as well.  But the disciples are a part of this moment, too. Jesus invites them to share in this moment and to be agents through whom God feeds hungry people, just because that is the sort of thing on God's heart.  This isn't a "You have to do this if you want to get full credit for taking my class" sort of moment; it is, rather, "You are being pulled into God's action in the world, and I want you to get to share in it."  It's not a "have to" sort of thing, so much as a "get to" kind of experience.

This is what Jesus is constantly doing with his disciples as he empowers them to share in his work, which is always the work of revealing God's Kingdom (or, if you like, the work of unveiling the policy priorities of the Yahweh Administration). Jesus heals people, yes, and he also sends his disciples out to heal others.  Jesus welcomes outcasts to his table, and then dares his disciples to extend their tables as well.  Jesus lifts up the lowly, and he trains his disciples to do the same. And he does all of those things, not as a prerequisite for achieving or earning a spot on his team, but because the whole point for them has been to experience God's Reign more fully.  Jesus didn't call disciples merely to be a traveling audience to watch him perform amazing stunts; he called them to share in the work that flows from the character of God.  Disciples learn to feed people because Jesus is about the business of feeding people--and Jesus cares about feeding people because that is the very heart of God.  Jesus is not only teaching us "This is what God's Reign is like," but shaping us to participate in what God's Reign is like ourselves.  That's what we're here for.

So when I hear folks wonder why it is worth it for a congregation out in the comfortable and well-fed suburbs to support and volunteer at a weekly meal hosted by fellow disciples in a particularly impoverished neighborhood of the city, I think of Jesus' response to his disciples. When I hear church folks in the United States ask why we bother to raise money or send supplies to folks rebuilding after disasters or wars in far-flung places all over the world, I think of Jesus' invitation to his followers. Helping to make sure everybody gets to eat isn't just "someone else's job", but rather it is part of God's work in the world, because it is God's own priority in the Kingdom that everybody gets to eat.  Jesus turns to us still, like he did to Peter, James, John and the rest of the group frozen with that deer-in-the-headlights look on their eyes, and he says once again to us, "You give them something to eat," precisely because that is what God cares about.  Giving people daily bread, just because they exist, is one of the top policy priorities of the Yahweh Administration--Jesus is just trying to let us be a part of what God is already doing in the world, rather than us missing out.

Will we take up the invitation Jesus has given to us?  Will we let ourselves be pulled into the work God is already committed to in the world?  And will we allow ourselves to be more fully alive knowing that we got to be a part of the revealing of God's Reign as we help to pass out the broken bread Jesus puts into our hands so that we might share it with the next person... until everybody gets to eat?  That sounds like a day... or a life... well-spent.

Lord Jesus, place daily bread in our hands that we might share it with the neighbors around us who are hungry, too.

How To Resist Evil (Without Resorting to Evil)--August 3, 2026

How To Resist Evil (Without Resorting to Evil)--August 3, 2026

"Now when Jesus heard [about the beheading of John the Baptizer,] he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick." (Matthew 14:13-14)

As many times as I have heard this passage and read this story (as we did this past Sunday in worship), I don't think it ever registered with me that the miracle we call the Feeding of the Five Thousand begins, at least in Matthew's telling, with the looming shadow of state violence against Jesus' forerunner, John.  What a set up for a story of miraculous abundance!  What a dark and foreboding introduction to the scene, you know?

The way these verses frame the story is important. They remind us that the Powers of the Day are always looking to snuff out any spark of criticism and to stomp out any resistance to their rule.  John the Baptizer had landed himself into trouble with the Roman puppet-king Herod for criticizing the fact that Herod took his brother's wife for himself. That prophetic stance speaking truth to power cost John his head, and when news of John's violent demise reached Jesus, he was of course distraught. Of course, part of the heaviness of the moment was pure grief: even though Matthew's version of the story only has John and Jesus interact a handful of times, Luke tells us that they are cousins, and presumably they would have grown up knowing one another.  So taking that into consideration, part of Jesus' need to withdraw is surely just his own personal mourning over a relative.

But there's more to it than that, as well.  John didn't just pass away quietly and peacefully from a long illness after a full and well-lived life, after all.  He was murdered by a jealous ruler who wanted him silenced--his death is a travesty of justice, and at least at the present moment, it looks like Herod is going to get away with it.  Like so many despotic governments in history, the Herod dynasty (going back to Herod "the Great") has no trouble at all with disappearing people who speak up against their rule, and that is a terrible truth to have to bear.  Jesus isn't only grieving for his cousin, friend, and fellow prophet--he is surely also grieving what it says about their society that Herod and his ilk can act with impunity like that.

And of course, Jesus also knows that what happens to John is surely a foretaste of what is in store for him.  Jesus, after all, will take up the very same message that John had announced in his ministry: "The Reign of God has come near!  Turn around and be a part of it!" If John was truly a prophet sent by God and he was not spared such a gruesome fate, then Jesus cannot expect to be spared the same, or similar, fate.  If it were not clear already for Jesus, this certainly removes any doubt that there is a cross in store for him.  And so it is certainly understandable that Jesus would need to step back, regroup, and respond to what has happened to John.

Surely some of his friends and disciples would have advised him to just lay low for a while, maybe to hide out away from the public until the heat was off.  Others might have told him, "Maybe if John just wouldn't have gotten so political, things would have been different." Maybe some in Jesus' circles would have just advised him to give up on being a public figure at all and to go back to working with his hands like Joseph had.  Jesus has to take a beat here to consider what is the right way to respond to the situation.  There were certainly several options: retreat and stop speaking up against the likes of Herod? Raise up a militia to launch a coup and try to kill Herod out of vengeance and then crown himself king in his place?  Hide forever? React in outrage and violence? Run away somewhere safe on the one hand, or incite a riot in protest on the other?  How do you resist the powers of evil when they are clearly willing to employ cruel and brutal tactics like beheading John?

And maybe even more importantly, how do you resist those powers without giving into their tactics and resorting to evil yourself?

That's the hardest part of this situation, I'm sure.  It would be easy if we were in Jesus' sandals to justify lashing back out in violence against Herod and his cronies--to kill one of Herod's soldiers, or to launch an assault on someone in the royal family.  It would have been tempting to think, "Why not try to get rid of Herod himself and replace him? I am a the TRUE King of the Jews, after all--I could just move things along a little faster and take the crown for myself now!"  It would certainly have been easy to let raw emotion provoke a reaction without any forethought or consideration of consequences and to mount a violent attack to try and get revenge.  Or, had Jesus been in a more cynical mood, he could have just given up all together and decided there was no use in resisting evil at all, and just to let Herod's violence and cruelty go unaddressed.  Maybe he could have even tried to join the ranks of Herod's loyal subjects--after all, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?

Jesus, of course, does no such thing.  He neither gives in to the despairing thought that evil cannot be resisted, nor does he surrender to the impulse to answer violence and cruelty with some of his own.  Jesus takes a moment to grieve, and then he responds to Herod's evil... with good.  The crowds, who are also harassed and troubled by Herod, come to seek Jesus out--and instead of withdrawing further, Jesus has compassion on them.  He heals their sicknesses, and he gives them his time. He answers the brutality of Herod with gentleness and help for those who are suffering.  He doesn't merely curse the darkness; Jesus offers light in the midst of it.

This is the calling Jesus gives to all who are a part of his movement, too: we are called to answer the rottenness so often on display in the world with decency, to respond to evil with good, and to meet cruelty with compassion.  For every act of intimidation and domination the Herods attempt, Jesus and his followers will respond with fearless love and public mercy. Every time they try to disappear someone as they did to John, Jesus' community will be a witness and will pick up the baton. We will resist evil without playing evil's game by its rules, by showing up in the world with compassion and healing.  We will, as Paul the apostle would put it to the Romans, "overcome evil with good."

Jesus was showing us how to do just that all along--it is his own way in the world, and it always has been.

Lord Jesus, prepare us to face the rottenness in the world with your kind of life-giving goodness.

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.