This guide covers the readings appointed in the Revised Common Lectionary for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 8), Year A, falling on June 28, 2026.

This Sunday closes the four-week arc of Jesus’ sending discourse in Matthew 10. The shape of that arc is worth holding in view as you prepare. Four weeks ago, Jesus called Matthew the tax collector from his table. Three weeks ago, he sent the twelve out with empty hands. Two weeks ago, he warned them about the cost of being sent. This week, the discourse closes with three short verses about welcome — a cup of cold water, a household opening its door, a small kindness that Jesus says is received as if it were given to him. After the heaviness of last week, the gentleness of this closing is itself part of the message: found, sent, warned, now received.

The Old Testament tracks pull in very different directions. Track One brings us Genesis 22 — the binding of Isaac — paired with Psalm 13’s repeated cry of “how long.” This is one of the hardest texts in all of Scripture, and the guide says so plainly. Some preachers will choose to preach it, and the guide tries to help them do so with care. Some will choose not to, and that is a legitimate decision; the cautions section makes the case that the choice should be made with information rather than avoidance. Track Two brings us Jeremiah’s confrontation with the false prophet Hananiah, paired with Psalm 89’s exuberant praise. The Epistle continues in Romans 6, where Paul presses the practical implications of having been freed in baptism.

The Readings

Genesis 22:1–14

First Reading (Track One) — The Binding of Isaac

Summary

This is one of the most difficult passages in all of Scripture. Without warning, the narrator tells us that God is going to test Abraham, and then God asks him to do something unspeakable — to take his beloved son Isaac, the long-awaited child of the promise, and offer him as a burnt offering. Abraham rises early the next morning, says nothing to anyone, and sets out with two servants and the boy. On the third day, he leaves the servants behind. He places the wood on Isaac’s back. Isaac, walking beside him, finally speaks the question that shatters the silence of the scene: “Father, the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham answers, “God himself will provide.” At the place of sacrifice, Abraham builds an altar, binds his son, places him on the wood, and reaches out his hand for the knife. At the last possible moment, an angel calls his name. Do not lay a hand on the boy. Abraham looks up and sees a ram caught in a thicket. He calls the place “The Lord will provide.”

Key Ideas for Preaching

* Three times in this chapter, Abraham answers with the same word — “Here I am.” Once to God, once to Isaac, once to the angel who stops him. The same single-hearted availability that gets Abraham into this terrible scene is also what lets him hear the voice that stops him. What might it mean for your congregation that the posture of being fully present to God includes the readiness to be interrupted?

* The line “God will provide” is spoken by Abraham before the ram appears. He does not say it after the rescue, looking back; he says it on the way up the mountain, before he knows how. What might it look like for your people to speak the provision before they can see it — not as denial of the situation, but as honest trust in the character of God?

* The ram was caught in the thicket the whole time. The provision was already there. Abraham had to keep climbing to find it. Where in your congregation has the help they are pleading for actually been present all along, waiting to be seen rather than waiting to be made?

* The story ends with a name: “The Lord will provide.” Generations of pilgrims will later climb that mountain remembering not the test but the providing. What might it mean for your congregation to name the places in their own lives the same way — not by what almost happened, but by what God did?

* Some preachers will choose not to preach this text, and that is a legitimate decision. The text is genuinely painful, and the work of holding it carefully is real. If you do preach it, what would it look like to let your people feel the horror of the scene rather than rushing past it toward a moral?

Significant Cautions

* This text has been used to argue that faith requires the suspension of ordinary ethics — that whatever God commands, however terrible, must be obeyed without question. That is a dangerous reading, especially in a world where people have committed real violence claiming divine instruction. The story actually ends the practice of child sacrifice in its ancient context; it does not bless it.

* The text has often been read as a kind of preview of God’s giving up his own Son on the cross. There are echoes worth noticing, but pressed too hard, this reading turns God into someone who almost kills children. That has done real damage in a hospital room or beside a grave. Handle the connection gently if you make it at all.

* “God tested Abraham” can land cruelly on people whose suffering has been described to them as a test. The text does not offer a general theology of suffering as divine examination. Be careful not to extend the scene into a blanket explanation for any congregation member’s grief.

* Sarah is entirely absent from this chapter. Some Jewish tradition has heard her cry in the silence, and her death in the very next chapter has been linked to this scene. Be honest about her absence rather than papering over it.

* The story has been used to bless the harm of family members in the name of religious obedience. Be especially careful that nothing in your sermon could be heard that way — particularly in light of the kinds of misuses we noted last week in Matthew 10.

Psalm 13

The Psalm (Track One) — How Long?

Summary

This is one of the shortest psalms in the Bible — six verses — and one of the most concentrated. It opens with the question “how long” asked four times in two verses: how long will God forget? how long will God hide? how long must the psalmist bear pain? how long will the enemy be exalted? Then a brief, urgent prayer for God to look and answer. And then, unexpectedly, a turn. “But I trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” The lament does not erase itself, but it ends in trust.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “How long” appears four times in two verses. There is no embarrassment about the repetition. Where in your congregation are people quietly afraid that their “how long” prayer has gone on too long, and what would it free in them to hear that the Bible knows that prayer by heart?

* The turn at the end of the psalm is not a resolution. The problem has not gone away. What has shifted is who the psalmist is remembering. How might this teach your people what to do when their situation has not changed but their grip on God needs steadying?

* Read alongside Genesis 22, the psalm gives voice to what Abraham, and perhaps Isaac, and perhaps Sarah could not say out loud. How might pairing the two texts honor the unspoken cry inside the more famous story?

Significant Cautions

* “I will rejoice in your salvation” can be turned into a command to feel better. The psalmist arrives at that line; he does not start there. Be careful not to use this psalm to shame those who are still living in the “how long” verses.

Jeremiah 28:5–9

First Reading (Track Two) — The Test of a Prophet

Summary

This is part of a longer scene. Jeremiah has been prophesying that the Babylonian exile will be long — a generation or more. Hananiah, another prophet, has been promising the opposite: that the exile will be brief and that God is about to break the yoke of Babylon quickly. The selected verses give Jeremiah’s reply. He says, in effect: I would love for your prophecy to be true. May God do what you say. But the prophets who came before us prophesied war and disaster and pestilence; the prophet who promises peace is recognized as a true prophet only when the peace actually arrives. The test of a true word from God is whether it bears out in time.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* Jeremiah does not dismiss Hananiah out of hand. He says, in effect, “amen — may the Lord do as you have prophesied.” Then he names the harder truth. What does it look like for your congregation to take seriously the appeal of every comforting message, including the ones that turn out to be false?

* Jeremiah’s test of a true prophet is whether the word comes to pass. That is a slow test. It does not yield quick certainty. Where in your congregation has the desire for fast answers led people toward voices that sound encouraging but do not bear out?

* The bigger backdrop is that the people of God are being asked to live faithfully through a long, hard time — not to expect a quick rescue. What might it mean for your congregation to hear that some of the most pressing questions of faith are about how to live well inside a hard season, not how to escape it?

Significant Cautions

* This text has been used to demand that anyone with a hopeful word be dismissed as a false prophet. Jeremiah does not say that. He says that some hopeful words turn out to be false. He does not say all of them are.

* Be careful with the implication that suffering and hardship are always the more spiritually credible message. That framing has its own pastoral dangers, especially in contexts where genuine deliverance is in fact what God is bringing.

Psalm 89:1–4, 15–18

The Psalm (Track Two) — Of Your Steadfast Love I Will Sing

Summary

A hymn celebrating God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. The opening verses promise to sing God’s praise forever, and remember God’s covenant with David — the promise to establish his line. The second set of verses turns to the people: happy are those who know the festal shout, who walk in the light of God’s face. Their strength is from God; their joy is in God’s name. The lectionary selects only the praise sections of a longer psalm that, by its end, becomes a sustained complaint about whether God has kept the very promises being celebrated here.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* “I will sing of your steadfast love forever.” The opening commitment is to a long song, not a passing feeling. What does it look like for your congregation’s praise to be the kind of thing they intend to keep singing for a long time, regardless of how a given week has gone?

* “Happy are the people who know the festal shout.” That suggests there is a kind of joy that has to be learned — practiced, taught, shouted out loud. Where might your people need permission to practice praise rather than wait for it to arrive on its own?

* Paired with Jeremiah’s hard-eyed realism, this psalm reminds us that honest realism about difficulty and unembarrassed praise are not opposites. Both belong. How might your sermon hold these two together?

Significant Cautions

* The lectionary’s selection omits the long complaint that closes Psalm 89. If you preach the praise alone, be honest with your congregation that this is one voice within a longer, more complicated prayer — not the whole of the psalm.

Romans 6:12–23

The Epistle — Wages and Gift

Summary

Paul picks up where last week left off. The argument has been that baptism unites us with Christ in his death and frees us from the rule of sin. Now Paul presses the practical implications. Do not let sin reign in your bodies. Do not present yourselves to sin as instruments of wrongdoing; present yourselves to God as people alive from the dead. Then he reaches for a metaphor that lands uncomfortably on modern ears: you were once slaves of sin, now you are slaves of righteousness. Paul acknowledges that the metaphor is limited — “I am speaking in human terms,” he says, “because of your natural limitations.” The passage closes with one of his most famous lines: the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* Paul assumes that we are always under some kind of authority — and that the question is not whether we will serve something, but what we will serve. Where in your congregation might it be freeing to hear that the choice is not between independence and submission, but between two very different kinds of belonging?

* The “wages of sin is death” line has often been preached as a scare tactic. But Paul sets it next to a contrast: the free gift of God is eternal life. Wages are earned. Gifts are not. What might it shift in your people to hear that what God offers is fundamentally not a paycheck?

* Paul says he is speaking in human terms “because of your natural limitations.” He admits openly that the metaphor he is using is imperfect. What does it look like to preach with the same kind of humility — using the words available while admitting that they cannot quite contain what is being said?

Significant Cautions

* Paul’s slavery language is rough. It was uncomfortable in its own century, and it is much more so now, in a world where actual chattel slavery has shaped enormous suffering. Be honest that the metaphor has its limits and has been misused.

* “The wages of sin is death” has been wielded as a threat. The structure of the verse actually points the other way — the news, the good news, is the free gift on the other side of the comma.

* “Slaves to righteousness” should not be flattened into a demand for moralism. Paul’s freedom is freedom from a set of destructive authorities, not freedom into a list of rules.

Matthew 10:40–42

The Gospel — A Cup of Cold Water

Summary

This is the close of the long sending discourse, and after the difficult sayings of last week, the tone here is unexpectedly gentle. Jesus speaks of welcome — how those who welcome the disciples welcome him, and how those who welcome him welcome the One who sent him. Then he names the smallest possible kindness: even a cup of cold water given to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple will not lose its reward. The whole sending speech, which began with sober instructions and warnings, closes here on what almost sounds like a warm afterthought — but an afterthought that turns out to carry real weight.

Key Ideas for Preaching

* The discourse closes not with grandeur but with the smallest possible act of hospitality — a cup of cold water. Where in your congregation has the imagination for “real” ministry crowded out the small kindnesses that Jesus actually names here?

* Jesus says that welcoming a disciple is welcoming him. That goes both directions. It promises something to your people when they are welcomed — they carry Christ with them. And it asks something of your people when they are the welcomers. How might this two-way welcome shape your congregation’s sense of both being received and receiving?

* This is the fourth and final Sunday of the Matthew 10 arc. Three weeks ago, the disciples were sent with empty hands. Two weeks ago, they were warned that the road would be hard. Today, the discourse closes with the promise that the smallest welcome is not lost. How might your sermon let your people feel the shape of the whole arc — and the unexpected tenderness of its close?

Significant Cautions

* “These little ones” is a tender phrase, but it has sometimes been preached condescendingly, as if the speaker were the welcomer and someone else were the recipient. In this passage, the disciples are the little ones. Be careful which direction your sermon casts the metaphor.

* The “reward” language is easy to flatten into transactional thinking — do this small thing and earn that big thing. Jesus is not running a points system. He is saying that nothing offered in his name goes unnoticed.

* The cup of cold water has sometimes been used to bless the substitution of small charity for real engagement with the systems that produce thirst in the first place. Both the small act and the larger work matter. Do not let one be used to excuse the absence of the other.

Thematic Connections

After three Sundays of increasingly difficult Gospel readings, the lectionary closes the Matthew 10 arc with three short, gentle verses about welcome. The four-week shape is worth holding together: found, sent, warned, received. The disciples who were called from their tables, then sent out with empty hands, then warned about the cost, are now placed inside a network of hospitality — disciples who carry Christ with them, and households who welcome them as Christ.

The Old Testament tracks pull in very different directions, and the preacher’s choice matters. Track One brings Genesis 22 alongside the brief Gospel — the agonizing test of Abraham paired with the small kindness of a cup of cold water. The contrast is severe, and the preacher has real work to do to make that pairing serve a congregation rather than overwhelm it. Psalm 13’s repeated “how long” gives voice to the silence inside Abraham’s obedience.

Track Two brings Jeremiah’s confrontation with false prophecy — the hard-eyed test of whether a word from God actually bears out — and pairs it with Psalm 89’s exuberant praise. The combination invites a congregation to hold honest realism and unembarrassed worship together.

Romans is on both tracks and continues to develop the question of what kind of life baptism actually launches. The wages-and-gift contrast at the close of the reading offers a clean line for a sermon on either track.

The Gospel itself is short enough that it may not seem to carry an entire sermon, but its closing image — a cup of cold water — is worth a sermon in its own right. After the heaviness of last week, the smallness of this week’s instruction is itself the good news. The disciples Jesus has been preparing are not asked to do impossible things; they are asked to receive and to give the smallest kindnesses faithfully — and to trust that those kindnesses are received as if they were given to him.

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