Br. Jack Crowley

Matthew 13:36-43

One challenge of modern-day life is knowing when to be serious. There is the challenge of knowing when to be serious, the challenge of how serious you should be, and the challenge of communicating how serious you are about something.

There is also the challenge of how to be serious with God. The challenge of knowing how we should speak to God when we really need to know something. How do we approach God in such a forward manner while still being respectful? How do we break through our day-to-day pleasantries with God and boldly ask for the truth?

In our Gospel tonight, we heard the wonderful story of the Disciples approaching Jesus directly. The context here is important. Jesus had just left a crowd of people after teaching them through a series of parables. Jesus is finally alone and inside a home after being surrounded by people.

I think we all know that feeling of coming home after a long event full of people. There’s that mixture of lingering excitement with fatigue setting in. There’s also this feeling of intimacy now that everyone has gone home. So the Disciples approach Jesus in this very specific context and ask very directly what he meant by his parable. They want the truth, the real deal, or maybe even they think there is something extra Jesus will tell them alone.

Like the Disciples, we must find the time and the mood to approach Jesus with a mix or urgency and intimacy. That serious desire for knowing must bubble up from deep within us and lead us to seek out Jesus wherever we can. We must also have a mixture of humility and boldness as we approach Jesus. We can be humble in our attitude towards the Son of Man but also be bold and authentic in our desire to know more through him and with him.

The point I’m trying to make is it is ok to get real Jesus. Not only is it ok, but maybe Jesus is also eager to meet you at that level of seriousness. What if Jesus is already there? Even after a long day, what if Jesus is waiting for you to approach him with your whole authentic being?

Try speaking to Jesus face-to-face in your own way with your own words. If you feel embarrassed to do so, ask yourself what do you have to lose? Amen.

Br. Lain Wilson

Matthew 13:24-30

Several years ago, I stood staring at a twenty-five-foot row of seven-foot-tall weeds. “You can take all of it out,” I was told. “All of it except a lilac bush that’s in there.”

That all seemed clear . . . except I had no idea what a lilac bush looked like. So I spent the next several hours checking and rechecking that this plant that looked like ragweed, that in fact looked like the dozens of ragweed stalks I had just pulled out, was, in fact, ragweed.

I eventually found the lilac, which looks nothing like ragweed.

The distinctions between “wheat” and “weeds” in today’s gospel are in fact much subtler than ragweed and lilac, so much so that they were nearly indistinguishable as young plants. Separation happened after harvesting, indeed, after threshing, when differently colored grains could be clearly discerned.[1]

Our parable today thus speaks to the patience that farmers would have shown in a familiar situation. It’s a patience Jesus asks his followers to demonstrate as they see all that is wrong around them, all that cries out for judgment: “Let both [wheat and weeds] grow together until the harvest” (Mt 13:30).

This parable speaks to the end of things, the “harvest.” But Jesus also speaks to his listeners, to his disciples and to us, in the here and now. The parable of the weeds reveals to us a necessary posture of compassion, forgiveness, and humble honesty.

It is very easy and natural for us to notice and call out the weeds around us – those who are different than us, who hold different priorities and go about their lives in different ways. It is easy for us to want to condemn them – want to see them come to judgment. But if Jesus urges patience, he also reveals that the distinction between wheat and weeds is subtle, surprising, and, perhaps, indiscernible to our eyes. We Brothers speak in our Rule of Life of “honor[ing] the mystery present in the hearts of our brothers and sisters, strangers and enemies. Only God knows them as they truly are.” Even those we hate, who seem to stand for everything we are opposed to, whom we would just as soon see as weeds to be gathered and burned, deserve our compassion and forgiveness as fellow creatures, known and loved by God.

Where do you notice resistance in yourself to exercising compassion and extending forgiveness?

Just as importantly, this parable speaks to the humble honesty we must turn on ourselves. Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn famously wrote that the “line separating good and evil passes . . . right through every human heart.” We, each of us, bear within ourselves wheat and weeds. We, each of us, have the work before us of a lifelong conversion. The humbling part is that, like the weeds of our parable, we may not always be able to discern what needs to be converted. The humbling part is recognizing that and praying to God, as the publican did, “Be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Lk 18:13). The humbling part is that this honesty may be how we are best able to cooperate with God’s work in the world.

In the end, we can only trust. Trust that God is merciful. Trust that we will be forgiven as we have forgiven others. Trust that God knows our hearts infinitely better than we ourselves can. And trust that, when we come to the harvest, God will gather us in.

Amen.

[1] W. Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, rev. ed. (Philadelphia, 1975), 2:73.

Br. Jamie Nelson

Matthew 13:10-17

In today’s gospel passage, Jesus has just finished preaching the Parable of the Sower to a large crowd gathered alongside the lakeshore. When we enter the story, his disciples have come to him privately to ask why he spoke to the crowd in parables.

I wonder if the disciples’ question masked feelings of disappointment.

I wonder if they felt that Jesus’ choice of teaching tool had squandered a great opportunity. Perhaps their own plans had been for him to relate to the crowd like a politician at political rally – pumping up the people with an inspiring message and building up a base of support for his Messiah movement.

I wonder if they would have liked him to perform a miraculous healing on command. That would demonstrate credibility for his claims to messiahship.

I wonder if they were hoping to pick up a few new guys for the discipleship road crew.

But instead, Jesus left out an inspiring call to action and told the crowd a confusing parable about seeds.

So what are parables, and why did Jesus choose them as a teaching tool?

I can give you an answer for the first question. Parables are deceptively simple stories that illustrate complex spiritual truths using everyday situations and settings. Parables are like icons – their images point to a deeper reality underneath the story.

As to the second question, why did Jesus choose to speak in parables – Jesus’ explanation about why is about as confusing as the parables themselves.

This gospel passage, and Jesus’ frequent use of parables, points to a complicated truth: that God is ultimately uncomprehensible to our limited human capacity for understanding. That the beauty, goodness, and power of God will stay beyond our knowing in this lifetime.

So why use parables?

Parables create space for wondering and for wrestling with God.

Parables offer nuggets of mystery to mull over.

Parables invite further seeking, they don’t set up tidy answers to regurgitate on command.

Parables plant the seeds of the kingdom.

Have you ever felt disappointed by God, unable to trust in the good news or to live in hope? Sometimes life is downright disappointing, and looking to Jesus’ words in the gospels can be confusing.

Jesus’ use of parables reminds us that God’s work is often hidden, mysterious, and silent. It’s easy to give in to the temptation to live as if human action is what brings salvation. However, the sowing and harvesting is ultimately God’s work, theologian Mark Burnham cautions us.[1]

Over and over, Jesus reminds his disciples that his messiahship isn’t going to look like what they’re used to. He doesn’t fit neatly into the box of Promised One born to overthrow Rome through military might, destined to restore glory and freedom to his people.

What he does offer is a kingdom that enters our world through stories. Through stories as seeds that grow into moments of insight and understanding, mercy and love.

Theologian Michelle Voss Roberts writes: “Jesus plants parables in the imaginations of his hearers to do the work that Scripture and theological language are supposed to do: take root, mature, and bear fruit.”[2]

But seeds take time to germinate, to take root, mature, and bear fruit.

So how to live in the in-between?

The poet Rainier Maria Rilke wrote this word of advice to a younger man that he was mentoring in poetry and in life:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.”[3]

Jesus’ parables are like those unsolved questions that Rilke writes about.

So let us follow his invitation and live the questions now.

[1] Mark R. Burnham. (2015) “Matthew 13:10-17 – Pastoral Perspective.” Essay. In Feasting on the Gospels – Matthew, Vol. 1. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, p360.

[2] Michelle Voss Roberts. (2015) “Matthew 13:10-17 – Theological Perspective.” Essay. In Feasting on the Gospels – Matthew, Vol. 1. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, p360.

[3] This quote is from Letter #4 of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet: https://rilkepoetry.com/letters-to-a-young-poet/letter-four/

Br. Luke Ditewig

Saint James and Saint John, Apostles

Matthew 20:20-28

From a life on the sea with nets and fish, Jesus called James and John. Immediately they left their boat and father Zebedee and followed. In a diverse group of unlikely students, they traveled from village to village as Jesus taught and healed. They learned by walking, listening, witnessing miracles, seeing scripture come alive, personally touched by love, hearing and seeing others changed. Jesus sent them out to preach, heal, and cast out demons. They learned to fish for people.

With Peter they climbed a mountain with Jesus and witnessed him transfigured. When traveling through Samaria, folk long excluded by Jews, residents didn’t receive Jesus and his disciples. In reply, James and John asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven on them! For jumping quickly to such extremes, Jesus nicknamed them Sons of Thunder.

Similarly, they sought special privilege, honored positions of power. Their mother asked, but Jesus saw through and spoke directly to the brothers. “You don’t know what you are asking.” Asking for power upset the other ten disciples, a striking but probably not new occurrence. Jesus clearly and graciously corrected their excess temper and ambition.

Jesus washed his students’ feet and called them friends. Jesus invited Peter, James and John to accompany him further when praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Instead of striving up, Jesus said: Whoever wishes to be great must be the servant of all.

Jesus also said: “You will indeed drink my cup.” King Herod had James killed, becoming the first martyr. We don’t hear that of John. John began the line of non-blood martyrs, people, like us, killed over and over by suffering though not literally, invited to trust through the hard.[i]

Like Peter and Mary Magdalene, like you and me, Jesus chose James and John as they were, thunderous and stumbling, eager and leading. Jesus patiently loved them, taught them, into more. How has Jesus has called you? How Jesus has loved you, especially how Jesus has washed your feet, your weakness and wounds. What’s the invitation now? Give thanks for the journey of becoming long loved into life as with Blessed James and John whom we remember today.

[i] Bruner, Frederick Dale (2004) Matthew: A Commentary. Volume 2, Revised and expanded edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, p330.

Br. Lucas Hall

Saint Mary Magdalene

John 20:11-18

In 2009, a discovery was made by archaeologists working near the sea of Galilee. They had uncovered what would become known as the Migdal synagogue, one of the earliest known synagogues in the world. Indeed, to this date, the Migdal synagogue is one of only 10 known synagogues from before the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem by the Roman Empire in the year 70. That destruction would have profound ramifications for the religious scene in the area of Judea; before the destruction, a great variety of sects had existed, leading to rather vibrant debate among them. After the destruction of the Second Temple, only two remained: the Pharisaic movement, which would develop into the Rabbinic Judaism we know today, and the early Christians.

Many scholars have argued that, before the destruction of the Second Temple, synagogues had existed, but they weren’t terribly common, and were not considered to be particularly sacred. They were gathering places, places of discussion, education, and debate, but they weren’t specifically holy. The argument goes that this sense of the sacred was instead limited to the Temple in Jerusalem. But the discovery of the Migdal synagogue opened up a challenge to that line of reasoning. Within the synagogue was a large carved stone block. The carvings on this block are remarkable, because they’re full of imagery from the Temple. Scholars have some disagreements about exactly what some images depict: some see the Inner Altar of the Temple on one side, while others dispute this. Similarly, on two of the sides are a series of arches, but between the arches, there are curved lines which could be sheaves of wheat, depicting a grain offering, or that could be distant arches in the background, referencing the mysterious entrance to the Holy of Holies. Unanimously agreed, though, is the depiction of the Temple menorah, the seven-branched candleholder of pure gold that lit the Temple. This stone is noteworthy for a couple reasons. First, because it existed before the Temple’s destruction, it was likely carved by someone who had actually seen the Temple and the objects within. And second, this stone, and its central location in the synagogue, seem to challenge the idea of synagogues as mere gathering places. To move the central, sacred imagery of the Temple to the local synagogue was likely intended to establish some of the Temple’s own sacredness in that synagogue. This movement of sacredness from a particular place to the communal gathering-place, wherever that may be, would soon be very important; the particular place of the Temple, in its sacredness, was soon to be gone. Only those Jewish religious movements that emphasized a personal and universal approach to God, not dependent on a specific place but on the intention and pattern of life of the individual and community—that is, the Pharisees and the Christians—would survive the Temple’s destruction.

Today is the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene. If it was not already apparent, this Migdal Synagogue and its famous stone—the Magdala Stone—are located in the ancient town of Magdala, where Mary was born. This town, too, would be destroyed by the Romans in the same war that destroyed the Temple. But Mary lived just a few decades before that. We don’t know much about her until her adulthood, where she first encountered Jesus. He is said to have healed her, freeing her from the clutches of seven demons. She financed his ministry out of her own pocket, and remained present for his crucifixion and burial, bringing myrrh to anoint his tomb. And, as we have just heard, she came to his empty tomb, at first heartbroken, then elated to discover the resurrected Christ. She was sent by him to tell the disciples, and as such is often referred to as “the Apostle to the Apostles.”

There is one part of this whole narrative that often causes people surprise, or confusion, and bears explaining. When Mary realizes she is speaking to Jesus, she grabs onto him. You might, too, if a loved one who had died was suddenly alive again. But Jesus tells her not to do so. “Do not hold on to me,” our reading tonight says. Conveying the sense of the original Greek, a more urgent verb might be used, “Do not cling to me.” Some have seen this as a somewhat insensitive retort to an awestruck friend. Some have seen in this a particular sexism, especially when compared to Jesus’s reaction to Thomas, beckoning him to touch his wounds, or at least Jesus’s adherence to gender norms around physical contact. But I don’t think that’s what’s really going on here.

Soon, we will all be invited to receive communion. In doing so, we customarily receive the bread in our hands, in a cupped, open position. This symbol of open-handed receptivity is of practical use, certainly, but more than that, it is instructive. It shows us how we should approach, and receive, God. Namely, we are not to cling. To cling is to close one’s hands. Doing so does not permit letting something go, even when necessary. It similarly does not allow receiving some new thing, even when sorely needed. The posture of closed-handed clinging is a double “no” to the power of God to take away that which is no longer what we are called to, and to give what God is calling us to anew. In short, to cling is to miss God’s purposes, to substitute whatever it is that is the object of your clinging, a passing thing, for God, and the things of God, the things that endure.

I do not believe Mary was inordinately clingy. But I do believe she was human, and therefore, prone to clinging to things. Perhaps she clung to her demons, those things Jesus liberated her from; maybe that sounds harsh, but I don’t mean it to be so. How many of us have seen someone clinging to a mindset, a behavior, a wound, a certain interpretation of past or present or future, that has been destructive to them? How many of us have been that person, clinging to something that is not giving us life? I have.

Mary did not seem to have a problem clinging to money or material goods. Indeed, she seemed to have a significant amount of wealth, and to be very generous with it. A woman in those days would rarely be able to control such wealth herself, and may have been understandably unwilling to part with it. But Mary doesn’t seem to struggle with that. Maybe the lesson here is that God doesn’t just call us to be challenged. Sometimes God does call us to use our strengths and learn from them. We brothers here, from time to time, switch jobs around the monastery. I often tell people there are three types of jobs: “We gave you this job because we think you’d be really good at it,” “We gave you this job because we don’t think you’d be very good at it, but it will give you an opportunity to improve a skill you need to work on,” and finally, “We gave you this job because you’re a warm body and we just need someone to do it.” I’ve had all three types. And managing money, it seems, fell into the first category for Mary. Not a struggle, but a chance to excel in the work of God.

But what of the tomb? What teaching about clinging was happening there? I believe this to be the final lesson, the capstone class for this long course in clinging and letting go. Because who would have expected Christ himself to tell his most faithful followers to let go? Not to hold on? It’s a surprise, to be sure. But he is able to say in this that he has more work to do, that is, his Ascension. There’s more coming. And to Mary, he is giving the ultimate lesson: “You have experienced me so much in this bodily way, your teacher, your friend, very near to you, in a way that is tangible. Don’t cling to that. It was good. But it will not last. Do not cling to an experience of God as if the experience itself were God. Do not pin your hopes on a particular feeling, or thought, or sensory experience, even one from God. Do not cling to me, Mary. These things are passing away. Instead, hold on to the things that endure.”

Jesus ascended; God’s love endured. The Temple passed. God’s faithfulness endured. War and sickness and poverty and strife rear their head. God’s justice endures. May we, with Mary, learn this hardest lesson, not to cling to passing things, even if those things are good and holy and dear. May we hold on to the things that endure.

Br. Curtis Almquist

Colossians 1:15-28

If I were to ask you “Who is Jesus to you?” you could probably say something right on the spot. You might not be ready to publish… however, there is something you could readily name about Jesus’ identity or your relationship to Jesus that you could express. That’s my hunch. “Who is Jesus to you?” You might speak of Jesus’ miraculous birth; or perhaps to his being Savior of the world; or to his miracles past and present; or to his being crucified, resurrected, ascended; or perhaps to his Real Presence in Holy Communion. However, my hunch is that you would not make reference to a particular phrase which appears in the Nicene Creed, which comes momentarily.[i] The phrase you will probably not use in your brief description of Jesus is, “Through him all things were made.”

That phrase first appears not in the Nicene Creed, but in Saint Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, the passage we just heard read, which is called “The Creation Hymn.” The phrase – “through him all things were made” – hugely enlarges the picture of “God the Son,” whom we know in earthly life as Jesus. Here is Saint Paul’s attention grabber: Jesus, who is God the Son, is the agent of creation. It is through the Son that “all things were made.” Trace your memory back to the beginning of the Book of Genesis, the creation story. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” God the Son. “And God saw everything he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” [ii] God the Son is the agent of creation. All that has been created for evermore in this world and in the worlds of interstellar space and the galaxies of the universe has been created by the Son of God. Saint Paul continues, saying that the Son of God humbled himself to take on earthly life.[iii] The Creator became the creature.

The Welsh poet and priest, R. S. Thomas, wrote an apocalyptic poem entitled, “The Coming.” The poem describes what had gone awry on earth with the appalling suffering and the desiccated hopelessness and despair. In the poem, we witness the Trinity: God the Son conferring with the Father and the Spirit. The Son, as he looks down upon earth, says, “Let me go there.”[iv] And God the Son, the Creator, is born a human being among us. This is Jesus. Saint Paul describes Jesus as “the image of the invisible God.”[v] The English word “image” is the translation of the Greek word “icon.” Jesus is the icon of the invisible God. In Jesus we can see, and hear, and feel, and know, and name the eternal, invisible, seemingly-distant God. Jesus entered the world to redeem world and to restore it to life.

In The Narnia Chronicles, C. S. Lewis captures a scene in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” where everything in Narnia is trapped in a 100-year-old winter night. This frozen lifelessness has happened because of collusion with the evil White Witch who has cast the icy spell. And then a miracle begins to happen. The great lion Aslan – who is the Christ figure – appears “on the move” in Narnia. Everything begins to thaw and springtime begins. “The mist turned from white to gold…. Shafts of delicious sunlight struck down onto the forest floor and overhead you could see a blue sky between the tree-tops.” Aslan comes as the rescuer and redeemer of the lost world.

In Jesus, God the Son comes into our world not just for the “spiritual salvation” of people. There is much more. Jesus comes to us because “God so loved the whole world.”[vi] The Greek word used for the “world” is cosmos. Jesus is the Savior of the cosmos.[vii] The breadth of Jesus’ saving intervention of love includes everything that has been created: people, to be sure, created in the very image of God, as well everything else that has been created and that suffers. Jesus is the “Savior of the cosmos.”

What is our personal calling, our vocation? Saint Paul calls us “ambassadors of Christ.”[viii] We are emissaries of God’s light, and life, and love. We are missionaries both to people and to the rest of creation which Saint Paul says “groans” in its suffering and estrangement.[ix] With so much suffering that surrounds us now, we live in a very opportune, crucial time to be God’s ambassadors. None of us has a global outreach; however all of us are within arm’s reach of some practice of restoration, or renewal, or adoption. We are all within reach some act of justice-making on behalf of God’s creatures – people, as well as earth, sky, and water; flowers and plants and trees; animals of the earth; birds in the sky; fish of the sea, these voiceless creatures who suffer so much devastation from our hands through things we have done, and things we have left undone, and things done on our behalf.

Where can we give our voice and muscle on behalf of some constituent part of creation that suffers injustice, discrimination, abuse, or neglect? To what people and for what other members of God’s creation can you and I take a stand? That is God’s invitation and God’s request. When I hear Jesus say, “as you have done to the least of these my brethren, you have done to me,”[x] I am thinking about people… but more than just people: about the whole of creation. We have duty!

God the Son, whom we know as Christ Jesus, has a vested interest in being Savior of the world, the whole cosmos. God the Son is the Creator of everything that has been, is now, and shall be. We believe that in our baptism Christ comes to live within us. And he instills in us the vocation and the power to co-operate in his work of saving the world. We must be on with it!

[i] The Nicene Creed attests: “…We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made…” The Book of Common Prayer (1979), p. 358.

[ii] Genesis 1:1-31.

[iii] Philippians 2:5-7.

[iv] R. S. Thomas (1913-2000) in “The Coming”:

And God held in his hand

                      On a bare

[v] “Image” = εἰκὼν (icon): Colossians 1:15.

[vi] John 3:16.

[vii] Jesus is “the Savior of the world κόσμου”: John 4:42.

[viii] 2 Corinthians 5:20.

[ix] Romans 8:22-24.

[x] Matthew 25:40-45.

Br. James Koester

Macrina of Caesarea

Mark 3:20-35

A few weeks ago, we remembered one of the great Eastern saints of the church, Basil of Caesarea. Today we remember another member of that remarkable family, his sister Macrina. I use the word remarkable to describe this family on purpose, because not only are the siblings Basil and Macrina regarded as saints, but so too are their grandparents,[1] parents,[2] two other brothers,[3] and a sister![4] Pity the other four siblings whose names we don’t know, and who are not counted among the saints of the church!

While it is through her brother Basil and his writings about his sister that we know of her, it is clear that her impact on him, and consequently on the church at large, is significant. The defining moment in her life was the death of her fiancé. This, coupled by a profound belief in the resurrection, shaped the rest of her life, which was focused on her expectation that she would be reunited with her fiancé in the next life. Basil tells us in his Life of Macrina that her hope of reunion with her fiancé was in fact a striving toward union with her true bridegroom, Jesus Christ.

Determined not to marry, Macrina established herself, along with her mother Emmelina, on one of their country estates. There she gathered around her a community of women, thus establishing one of the first monastic communities in the church and setting the standard of holiness for early Christian women. This community was made up of women from aristocratic and non-aristocratic backgrounds. All members of the community were free, and all had the same rights and obligations, including the slaves on the estate. The focus on caring for their neighbours, especially the poor and sick among them, and their virginity, was said to reflect the radiant purity of God.

Reflecting of Macrina, two things stand out for me. One is how her belief in the resurrection shaped her entire life. We see this not simply in her determination not to marry someone other than her deceased fiancé, but also in the way she ordered her life and her relationships with others. This can only be described in terms of a life of radical equality. It is this radical equality which in turn connects us to the gospel for today: Who are my mother and my brothers? … Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.[5]

We live in an age of radical inequality. Macrina shows us another way, and in doing so, returns us to our roots as Christians, a profound and profoundly radical belief in the resurrection as well as a profound and profoundly radical notion of the equality of all people, that are not interesting add-on to our life, but the things that shape us, and results in our lives becoming reflections the radiant purity of God.

[1] St. Macrina the Elder

[2] St. Basil the Elder and St. Emmelina

[3] St. Peter of Sebaste, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Naucratius

[4] St. Theosebia the Deaconess

[5] Mark 3:34-35

Br. Lain Wilson

Matthew 12:1-8

Our gospel lesson today may sound very familiar to some of you. We heard Mark’s version of Jesus’s encounter with the Pharisees last night at Evening Prayer (Mk 2:23-28). Moreover, today at Morning Prayer we heard the account from the life of David that Jesus refers to (1 Sam 21:1-15).

These echoes are not incredibly common, and when our lectionaries line up lessons like this, I like to imagine God saying to me, “Hey, this is important! Pay attention!”

So what’s important about this encounter?

In this story, Jesus runs up against a rigid interpretation and application of the Law, of what it means to keep Sabbath. At issue is a basic human need—the disciples are hungry! And if this were not enough to respond to the Pharisees’ objections, Jesus invokes the precedent of David and his companions, as well as the very practice of priests serving in the temple on the Sabbath. Human need, sacred history, and the Law all provide license for what the disciples do.

Now I can’t imagine that the Pharisees didn’t know this. They knew their Scripture. But one of the realities they faced—and indeed, one that we all face—is a tendency toward rigidity, toward inflexibility as a defense against the messy contingency of life and human relationships. Our Rule expresses something similar when it speaks to “the tendency for communities to harden into institutions, and for officialdom to replace the spontaneity of mutual service.”

We all face this pressure—to normalize, to rationalize, to conform. Especially now, in a time of such numbing conflict and polarization, it is so easy to set boundaries, red lines, purity tests. God had to harden Pharaoh’s heart in the book of Exodus; we do it to ourselves all too easily. We are uncomfortable with exceptions, with things that come at us slantwise, that break our neat and tidy categories, because they reveal all too well that this desire for order, for control, for us and them, is a desire that fails to account for, or ignores completely, our very humanity: messy, contingent, needful.

And not only that: it fails to account for the actions of the God of mercy, of grace, of love in the very midst of our messy, contingent, and needful lives.

Where do you notice your own tendency toward rigidity and inflexibility? How is God challenging this?

As Jesus shows us today, it is precisely where our human imposition of order and clarity on a messy world is challenged that we find God inviting us to join God in doing the work of the kingdom. It is in these places that we are called, as the prophets exhorted, “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God” (Mic 6:8). It is precisely in encountering the world as it truly is, and not just as we’d like it to be, that we are able to encounter the God of mercy, of grace, and of love at work.

Amen.

Br. Luke Ditewig

Matthew 11:20-26

When saying, teaching, and showing the same thing over and over, it’s frustrating when your children, students, friends, or audience don’t listen or understand or respond or rise to the invitation. It’s hard to be ignored and misunderstood. Jesus knows that firsthand.

John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus, introduced Jesus to the crowds and baptized him. But lingering in prison and not seeing expected change, John doubted. John asked: “Are you really the Messiah or should we wait for another?” Jesus replied: Yes, I’m doing what you said. Remember Isaiah; I’m healing and liberating, just not as you expect. John, who perhaps knew Jesus best, misunderstood him.[i]

Jesus did most of his early work, including healing, calling his disciples and feeding five thousand in three little villages near each other: Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. These people who most saw the signs and directly heard Jesus ignored him. They didn’t repent. Jesus confronts, saying: Woe. You are worse than infamous Sodom. The indifference to God is more a problem than notorious evil by their neighbors.[ii]

Then Jesus prays. “At that time,” Eugene Peterson points out, misunderstood and ignored, Jesus gives thanks: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.”

Jesus knows this misunderstanding and indifference do not impede God. The so-called wise and intelligent are limited to the surface. Down beneath, hidden to them, divine power surges onward. [iii] God reveals and works through infants and children through unexpecting and hidden people and means. The surface makes Jesus sad. Jesus responds and confronts. Jesus trusts and gives thanks that is God with us and grace continues.

What’s happening in your life? Which friends or family are troubling you? What evil, active or indifferent, makes you mourn? What tempts you, rational or not, to despair?

With simple, child-like faith, listen down deep: God is with us, God loves all, and God is healing. At this time, perhaps feeling ignored or misunderstood, or weighed down by grief and upset at injustice, join Jesus in deep trust that grace continues saying: “thank you.”

[i] Eugene Peterson. (2008) Tell It Slant: a conversation on the language of Jesus in his stories and prayers. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, p198-199.

[ii] Eugene Peterson, p200.

[iii] Eugene Peterson, p201-202.

Br. Jamie Nelson

Luke 10:25-37

Who here remembers watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood?

For those who need a refresher, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was a children’s television show that aired from 1968 to 2001. Mr. Rogers, the titular character, was a silver haired man with a gentle smile. Each episode began with him welcoming viewers into his home, then removing a businesslike suit jacket and putting on a comfortable handknit cardigan while singing the show’s theme song, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

The lyrics go like this:

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood

… Please, won’t you be my neighbor?

The show’s content wasn’t overtly religious, but Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister, and it showed. His deep faith was the source of the show’s emphasis on kindness and community for its young audience.

The lyrics touch on questions at the heart of today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke: who is our neighbor, and how might we act as a neighbor to others.

But the reading doesn’t start talking about neighbors. Before it gets there, it starts out with a different question, posed by a scholar of religious law.

“Teacher,” the scholar said, addressing Jesus, “what must we do to inherit eternal life?”

The gospel writer tells us that the scholar is testing Jesus, using a standard question that served as a theological litmus test to determine where Jesus stood on key religious matters. Instead of answering, Jesus responded by asking the scholar to answer for himself.

The scholar quoted from the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, giving the standard response that a Torah scholar would give:

To love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.[1]

Jesus affirmed his response. By agreeing, Jesus showed that his ministry and the gospel message he proclaimed were in line with, not contrary to, the traditions of their shared faith.

But the conversation didn’t end there. Seeking to justify himself, the scholar responded with another question: “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus – as was typical – didn’t respond directly. He told a story instead: the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

It’s a parable found only in Luke’s gospel, a book which puts extra emphasis on God’s compassion, forgiveness, and mercy.[2]

The setting of the parable was the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It’s a 17-mile walk, a winding, curving downhill journey through a narrow canyon peppered with blind curves, perfect places for bandits to take unsuspecting travelers by surprise, rob them, then quickly disappear into the hills.[3] Even until the 20th century, robbery was common on that isolated stretch of road.[4] Jesus’s listeners would have understood the danger of the journey.

The main character is a traveler. Rather than seeking the safety of a caravan as many of his fellow travelers did, this traveler set out alone on the risky journey. Predictably, he was attacked by robbers, injured, and left for dead.

The first person who happened upon him was a priest, who, rather than helping the injured traveler, crossed the road to the other side and continued on his way. Due to religious purity laws, touching a dead body would have made him ritually unclean for seven days, so it’s possible that the priest didn’t want to risk having to miss work because he’d checked on the injured man.

The second person to walk by was a Levite. He, though not a priest, also had responsibilities in the temple, and thus was likely also keeping in mind the religious purity laws. He also crossed the road to avoid the injured man and passed by without stopping to help.

Finally, a Samaritan walked past. The Samaritan didn’t turn away from the man’s suffering, he noticed it, walked towards it, and offered the injured man compassionate care. He gave the man 1st-century first aid with oil and wine and ensured that he’d be cared for as he recovered.

You may recall that Samaritans and Jews didn’t hold each other in high regard in Jesus’s time, to the degree that pilgrims traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem would routinely add 3-4 extra days of walking to their journey to avoid going through Samaria. Thus, Jesus’s audience may have thought the Samaritan was an unlikely hero.

Jesus asked the religious scholar to identify which of the three men had been a neighbor to the injured traveler. His answer: “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus ended by encouraging the audience to “Go and do likewise.”

It’s easy for us as listeners to imagine ourselves onto these characters. Perhaps a memory or personal story came to mind when you heard the passage proclaimed just now. If so, which character did you identify with, given your story?

Being a human is complicated. I imagine most of us have has moments where we behaved like each of the parable’s characters. Perhaps there was a time when you were able to emulate the Samaritan and act with compassion and practical care for another. But sometimes we may behave more like the priest or Levite, and our sense of duty or fear overrides our capacity to act with mercy. And then there may have been a time when you found yourself in circumstances like the traveler, lying injured on a lonely road and needing help. But Jesus gives us here a compass direction to follow.

So what message is Jesus sharing with us in this passage?

Notice that Jesus didn’t actually answer the scholar’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” He didn’t draw tidy boundary lines between neighbor and other. Jesus erased those boundary lines instead, thereby eliminating the category of “other” altogether. In God’s kingdom, Jesus revealed, we are all neighbors to one another.

So how can we be a neighbor to others? Here are several possibilities:

One way is to pray with the front page news. There’s a quote attributed to 20th-century theologian Karl Barth: “We must hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” Stay informed about the suffering of our neighbors across the globe, across this continent, and in our own cities. Pray for them, let this shape your compassion.

A little closer to home, you might pray as you walk around your neighborhood. Yes, Jesus wants us to remember than our neighbors are not just the people whose lives are visible to us, but also, we can strengthen our neighborly muscles by remembering them before God.

You might also use the parable as a format for praying an examen. For instance, you could ask yourself:

On television, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood offered a visible parable of neighborliness to viewers.

When the show began, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had recently been passed, making the racial segregation of public facilities illegal in the United States. But segregation was still in effect in many places. And in places where segregation wasn’t an official policy, many public swimming pools were unofficially Whites-Only due to both interpersonal and structural forms of racism.[5]

On the May 9, 1969 episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Mr. Rogers invited Officer Clemmons, the character played by African American actor François Clemmons, to cool off on a hot day by joining Mr. Rogers in submerging his feet in a wading pool.[6]  And so he did, and there the two men sat, one Black and white, sharing the pool in neighborly companionship.

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood

… Please, won’t you be my neighbor?

Officer Clemmons and Mr. Rogers showed us how to be neighbors.

May we go and do likewise.

[1] These verses come from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.

[2] Ottati, Douglas F. “Luke 10: 25-37 – Theological Perspective.” Essay. In Feasting on the Gospels–Luke, Vol. 2, 296–296. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015. Take, for example, the story of the prodigal son, another story found only in Luke. There too, Jesus offers a story that demonstrates the extravagance of God’s mercy.

[3] Peterson, Eugene. Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers, p.41. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008.

[4] Barclay, William. The Gospel of Luke, p.165. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1977.

[5] The impacts of swimming pool segregation continue to the present. A study completed earlier this year found that over 60% of African American children have not learned to swim: https://www.usaswimming.org/news/2025/02/24/deep-dive–a-look-back-on-the-desegregation-of-pools-in-america Related, African American children between ages 5-14 are 3x more likely to drown than white children in the same age group: https://www.cdc.gov/drowning/health-equity/index.html

[6] A fuller treatment of the episode can be found here: https://www.biography.com/actors/mister-rogers-officer-clemmons-pool