9 Pentecost (Year A)
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-50
St. John’s, West Seneca
July 26, 2026
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
“The parables at the end of Matthew 13 are brief, evocative snapshots, presented in a staccato, rapid-fire fashion.” That is true.
The question for the day is “What is the kingdom of heaven?” Note: not, what is heaven? What is the kingdom of heaven? Jesus is speaking about the heavenly rule over all things. Each example provides an answer to that question, in its own way.
So, what is the definition of “kingdom of heaven?” “The kingdom of heaven is not so much a spiritual reality beyond this world, as a spiritual reality that’s breaking into this world.” In other words, bringing heaven to earth. You have heard me speak of “thin space,” the boundary between heaven and earth. For Jesus, this was thin, meaning that God was always near. Matthew begins with Jesus proclaiming that “The kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Which means that Jesus wants us to wake up and be aware of this reality and that God is near in our daily, ordinary lives. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware.
Jesus understood the power of everyday image. And in today’s gospel, we see it over and over, with not just one or two examples, but five. What are we to learn about God and the kingdom of heaven, so much so that Jesus uses example after example?
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come an make nest in it branches.”
God’s truth is an overwhelming concept, one that theologians have talked and argued about for centuries, hammering out their views into volume upon volume of books. But what Jesus did is what I call the “Reader’s Digest” version, taking that immensity of God and his ways, and making it far more easy to remember. Jesus was using his “like” stories to soften the truth about the kingdom, because Jesus knew the enormity of divine will and the infinity of God was far beyond the comprehension of the average Galilean …or us, the people of a postmodern, 21st century world.
Listen to the first “like” Jesus uses in this week's Gospel lesson. The kingdom of heaven is ... "like a mustard seed." The kingdom compared to a tiny mustard seed. That image turns our own ideas of ourselves upside-down. We like to think that we are a strong tree, unwavering. Yet Jesus takes this small mustard seed and how it becomes “the greatest of shrubs” where birds can make a nest.
“Some biblical scholars think Jesus’s mustard plant is what the botanists call 'black mustard' — more of a shrub, really, than a plant. Occasionally, it grows as large as 6 feet tall.2 Black mustard is essentially a weed — the sort of plant gardeners with a sense of humor refer to as a 'volunteer.' No self-respecting farmers would let it grow up in their fields. Once established, it’s difficult to root out.
"But here’s what’s different in Jesus’s parable. In his telling, the farmer intentionally sows the mustard seeds! 'The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field …' Go figure! It’s like Jesus is saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is like a bunch of dandelion seeds that someone sowed on the front lawn.'
"Why would anyone go and do a crazy thing like that — sowing dandelion seeds? Anyone who’s ever knelt on a lawn with gardening gloves and one of those little rooting-out tools knows how rapidly they spread, and how persistent they are. But maybe that’s exactly what Jesus is trying to tell us about God’s heavenly realm! The seeds of heaven may seem tiny and insignificant, but once they take root in the ground, there’s no stopping them.”
“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed it with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
First a small mustard seed, now the kingdom is from the domain of women’s work. The kingdom compared to something as mundane and menial as making the dough for the daily bread. Bread baking was not only woman's work, it was servant's work - a daily burden necessary to keep the most basic dietary staple on the table.
Like the mustard seed, this tiny spore of yeast added to flour shows the power of the kingdom. Again, a tiny thing shows how the kingdom can be made great.
When we struggle to understand these theological truths, we tend to look to the unusual, the outstanding, something that gets people’s attention and serves as a wake-up call to God’s presence. We want to hear stories about miracles, first-century as well as modern-day miracles. We want bells and whistles, a grand production. But Jesus does something else; his method was to soften God’s power and presence by wrapping it in the everyday. The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says over and over, is far more intimate and at hand than any once-in-a-lifetime act of divine intervention.
It’s the same with the next examples, the treasure in the field, and the pearl of great price. The kingdom of heaven, Jesus is saying, is already present in our world. It may be hiding in plain sight, but in such a way that not everyone can see it. Having glimpsed its presence, we have only to reach out and claim it for our own.
“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.”
Here, too, the gifts of God — the signs of the inbreaking kingdom of heaven — are present among us in great abundance. In Jesus’s time, a net was used rather than a fishing line. The catch was great, but had to be sorted out. Jesus explains this much as he did with the wheat and the weeds. God invites all together, but still, the good will be separated from the evil.
There you have it, the kingdom of heaven found in the ordinary mustard seed and yeast. Or treasure hidden in the field, or a net. Our task is to look at our own lives and discover how many "kingdom-likes" there are in it.
Is the kingdom of heaven like one of my mom’s circle group, women who had been together for so long that not only do they know each other, but the children as well. And they always found something new to talk about.
Is the kingdom of heaven like the one who always volunteers and shows up?
Is it like the security guard who greets everyone with a “Good morning” and a smile?
“Earth is crammed with heaven” and we can learn to recognize it. The kingdom of heaven is breaking in on us every day, and not in a grand production, but in the ordinary and the mundane, or in what only we can see. Jesus’s words come rapid fire, but with images we understand. My hope is that His words wake us up so that we can bring heaven to earth. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Homiletics, What’s Heaven Like? Sunday, July 30, 2023
8 Pentecost (Year A)
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
St. John’s, West Seneca
July 19, 2026
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
Nine years ago…
“If you've ever shaken a bit of dry parmesan cheese from a can onto your spaghetti and meatballs and mused that it kind of looks like (and maybe even tastes like) sawdust, well, it turns out you might be more right about that than you think.
"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration … busted a cheese manufacturer in Pennsylvania for marketing its product as '100% real parmesan' when it actually contained no parmesan at all. In reality, consumers were sprinkling a mixture of imitation cheese and trimmings of other cheaper cheeses like Swiss, white cheddar, Havarti, and mozzarella on their pasta.
"To be fair, a lot of cheese manufacturers do use cellulose in their parmesan because it acts effectively to keep the cheese from clumping (and saves consumers from taking the time to grate their own cheese).
"The problem for … corner-cutting manufacturers is the percentage of cellulose they actually use. The cheese industry considers 2 to 4 percent cellulose as an acceptable and safe level, but some of the parmesan you might be buying off the shelf at your local grocery store may contain as much as 8 percent.”*
That's a lot of fake filler. In today’s parable, someone has planted “filler” in with the wheat. Evidently, it was not uncommon in Jesus’s time for a landowner to undermine another landowner by messing with his crops. There was even a law on the books forbidding the practice. And what made it illegal was that the weed often used was named “darnel,’ a variety of ryegrass that looked like wheat in the early stages. Once the grain “headed out,” one could see that it was not wheat. But by that time, it was too late, and the wheat and the weeds would be entwined. To pull out one was to pull out the other.
You can understand why the servants were upset. At the beginning of the season, they would have prepared the field by pulling any weeds so that the crop would have the ideal soil in which to grow. It’s not unlike today when farmers prepare the fields for the seed.
And that brings to mind one of the tasks that I did each spring. Not weeding, but fanning wheat. In one of the storage barns, wheat from the previous year, the previous harvest, was stored. Each spring, my dad would get the fanning mill so that my sister Joan and I could fan the wheat to separate the wheat from the chaff. As always, something gets in there during the harvest. The mill is not a huge piece of equipment, about 4 feet high, two feet wide; ours ran on electricity. My sister would fill a bucket with wheat, turn it into the top of the mill. The wheat would filter down, passing between two screens going in opposite directions. The fanned wheat came out at the bottom and I would shovel it into a farm wagon. The wagon is about ten to twelve feet long, seven feet high, five feet wide. I texted my sister for the measurements and she agreed that I remembered it correctly. It takes a long time from the first shovel to the last and we would work on this after school or on the weekend. It is not necessarily hard work, but hot, dusty, and just tedious. Now, this is done so that the wheat is not deterred when it begins to grow, as even a bit of chaff gets in the way. This was done is ancient times as well, and my internship pastor’s wife had a basket that was used for this specific purpose.
But as Jesus tells it, after the preparation of the soil and the planting was done, an enemy snuck into the fields and deliberately planted weeds among the wheat. By the time anyone noticed, the damage had been done, for the crop as well as the reputation of the landowner.
The parable says that there was so much of this fake wheat that the servants were amazed and wondered where it had come from. They knew their master had always focused on the best. And he pointed out: "An enemy has done this.”
The landowner's servants are ready and willing to go out and pull up these weeds. But he understood that this could be harmful and do more damage than good. The roots would be intertwined. Much better to wait until the harvest when the wheat – easily recognizable – could be harvested.
“…it would be fairly easy for the reapers to tell the difference at that point, because darnel doesn't grow as high as wheat when it matures. The harvesters could cut the wheat just below the head and leave the darnel to be cut separately. Even then, the darnel would serve a purpose. In a land where wood was scarce, the weeds would be bundled and used as fuel for actually baking the bread that the real wheat made possible (v. 30)!”
The disciples needed more after hearing this. Jesus explains and says: wait. At the time of the harvest, all will be sorted out. Jesus is simply saying this: Leave the weeds to me. You just worry about growing up as wheat. Now that is a request that is very hard to follow, as we make judgments all the time about who is in and who is out. We live in a rush-to-judgment world. Whether we admit it or not, we make micro-judgments all time about our neighbors and co-workers, those we have never met, never dreaming that they might be the wheat and we the weeds. Last week I mentioned that we Americans tend to think of ourselves in the heroic role, never a Judas, rarely a Thomas. We think we can tell the difference, but it is not always that visible. It is God who sees all.
And we do the same in the church. We judge some for being too progressive, some for being too traditional. Some churches are judged for embracing doctrinal errors, others for appearing not to have any doctrine at all. Some are condemned for not caring for the poor, others for caring only for the poor. And the list goes on and on.
No wonder, then, that Jesus counsels us to hold off on the weed-pulling “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them”.
That is the most common interpretation of this parable: that Christians should not pronounce judgments. While accurate, it may limit how we think of the wheat and the weeds.
What this parable tells me is that God is at work in the entire world sowing us - children of the kingdom. And just as God is at work in the world, so also is the enemy or the devil. The parable suggests that we need to coexist as God’s people right along with those who are not with God. The kingdom is hidden in the here and now: both wheat and weeds will be present at the end. The fact that the two cannot be distinguished illustrates that we cannot be sure who will be God's chosen in the end. Appearances are deceptive -- those who appear as wheat may be weeds and those who appear as weeds may be wheat. Only in the judgment "at the end of the age" will the two be identified and separated. So, we must live according to God’s plan, and let God do the separating.
That’s the good news. Growing up, when the fanning of the wheat
Getting back to the filler in the cheese, perhaps the best question we can ask ourselves is this: are we authentic, real, as we go out in the world? Or are we filler, looking like the real thing?
God sees all and is at work in the world sowing among us. Our job is to be what Jesus asks of us. Love God first with all our being, love our neighbors as ourselves. Let anyone with ears listen! Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria.
*Illustration and quotes taken from FAKE FOOD, FAKE FAITH, Homiletics, July 23, 2017.
was done, with a wagon filled with good grain, I saw the chaff left behind in a nice pile. But did some get in and deter good growth in one part of the field? Only at the harvest could you see the result.
7 Pentecost (Year A)
Matthew
St. John’s, West Seneca
July 12, 2026
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Parables offer a different perspective, a new worldview. They give us a glimpse into God’s world and what God is like. They heal our ears and our eyes so that we might hear and understand, see and perceive. Parables are not meant to test human intelligence.” Thank goodness!
Parables are “kernels of grace” that inspire us to continually be amazed and awed by God’s generosity. That is what this parable of the Sower does. God continues to sow, with reckless abandon.
Being raised on a farm, the first thing I notice is the one who sows, or plants. He is not filling a planter and sowing in neat rows as farmers do now. He is not digging small holes and covering the seeds with dirt. It is not like the planting of seeds today, as those like my brothers, with state-of-the-art tractors with calibrated seeders scientifically planting the seed at the right depth. Rather, the Sower is just tossing seed recklessly. In the first century, that was the common practice and much seed was wasted; Sowers broadcast it widely. And even if some of those seeds hit the path and are gobbled up by birds, the sower just keeps sowing.
That is what Jesus was doing with his teaching, his words. He was broadcasting the word. He spoke to all who could hear. Some passed on by; some were entertained. Others disagreed, and some just said “no.” Jesus simply planted—and he wants his disciples – and us - to do likewise.
So we need to hear the rest of the parable.
"Other seeds fell on rocky ground," says Jesus, "where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away." "other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!”
One of the interpretations of this parable is that Jesus is calling us to be good soil, to be ready for the Sower, who sows with abandon, as God loves with abandon. And so, when you hear the Word, don’t be like that path, that is hard, with no depth. There is very little chance that you will grow there.
And you don’t want to be “rocky ground” either, taking root, but lasting only a while, and when bad times come, is gone.
As for that thorny soil, in which "the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word?” Avoid that as well.
Be the good soil, hearing the Word and letting it guide your life.
So, if you have ears, listen! As one pastor wrote:
“Jesus is not just describing different types of soil or circumstances of life. He is describing our inner geography. These are the various landscapes of the human heart. We have met these in others and discovered them in ourselves. We are rarely just one type of soil. We are all four. The four soils are descriptive of how we live and relate to others and to God. Jesus’ interpretation of the parable, when he tells what happens to the seeds, describes the consequences of each kind of life.”
How true! It’s been noticed that in American Christianity, we seem to see ourselves as the hero. We think we are like Queen Esther rather than the scheming Haman. We could never be like Elijah and just hide in a cave. And should God call us somewhere different, we could never be like Jonah and go the other way. Or like Peter, who denies Jesus. And never Judas, who betrays him.
Of course we are the good soil. This parable does invite us to take a look at ourselves, to reflect on our lives and examine who we are and what we hope to become. While we all want to believe that we are that “good soil,” the truth is that at times, we do become entangled in the lure of what the world has to offer. And the world offers more than we could possibly need. Or we say we want to tithe, or be more involved, but somehow, it never comes to pass. Still good soil?
Examining how we use our lives is not a bad use of our time, but we might be missing the point of the parable. Are we -the soil- at the center of this story?
You see, the “what kind of dirt are you” question is not the only way to read this parable. That question may just be a decoy that distracts us from another way to understanding.
There are different types of soil, but the sower continues to sow the same seed with seemingly equal toil, equal hope and generosity. What strikes you immediately about the character of the Sower? Yes, he seems a bit careless, but also hopeful. He knows that at least some of the seed will fall into the good soil, and that is all he needs.
The sower does not consider the soil’s quality or potential. There is no soil left unsown. No ground is declared undeserving of the sower’s seeds. This is not about the quality of dirt. It’s about the quality of God, the divine sower.
So the parable has two things to say: First, be good soil, grow deep and sure, and if you find yourself lagging, keep working. The other is our discipleship, our witness to others. And here is where the rubber hits the road. Just as the seeds does not always produce, not everything will work as we go about our work in the church. Some ministry ideas just don’t take root, as on the road. Some get started, but never go deeper. Some ministries get involved fast and furious, but fail when the “world” lures them away. In my devotions for this week, a colleague wrote:
As for the disciples…“That pretty much describes what people did with his word, and what people yet today do with the gospel word. But neither Jesus nor the disciples forced or manipulated people to hear, nor did they let different receptions stop them from sharing God’s news. Neither should we.”
God is prodigal, extravagant with His love and mercy. The sower continues to sow through us. Let’s be prodigal as well with our ministry and in our lives. Take a few chances and plant with reckless abandon our words and our actions. As God is prodigal, so let us be with the good news of God’s abundant and amazing grace. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria.
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5 Pentecost (Year A)
Matthew 10:40-42
St. John’s, West Seneca
June 28, 2026
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
This morning I read an article entitled: "5 places Americans mistakenly think are dangerous, but aren’t.” Those countries are: El Salvador, Vietnam, Rwanda, Georgia, and Aruba. In the past, perhaps they were dangerous, but that was decades ago. El Salvador had jailed gang members, and the murder rate dropped 98 percent. It now has the same safety rating as Switzerland and Japan. Rwanda is called the “Singapore of Africa,” and while the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo is unsafe, the interior is safe…and clean. Georgia, not the state, is part of the Caucasus, and was part of the Soviet Union. “But back in 2003, the Georgian government did something radical: they fired the entire, deeply corrupt traffic police force overnight and rebuilt a Western-style law enforcement agency from scratch. Today, Georgia routinely ranks in the top 20 safest countries in the world.” And, the Georgians refer to their visitors as “gifts from God.”**
Today it is all about hospitality, that gift of grace of a welcome. It is all about hospitality as Jesus sends his disciples -- and by extension: us. In the ancient world, hospitality was not just a nice gesture, it could mean the difference between life and death.
Once a guest arrived, there were a number of “niceties” offered:
- offering a drink of water
- washing the feet of the guest
- greeting the guest with a kiss
- anointing or washing the head
- offering the guest something to eat
And even then, some went above and beyond. In II Kings, and featuring the prophet Elisah, there is a lesser known story about hospitality that is a reminder for us.
“ One day Elisha was passing through Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to have a meal. So whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for a meal. 9 She said to her husband, “Look, I am sure that this man who regularly passes our way is a holy man of God. 10 Let us make a small roof chamber with walls and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that he can stay there whenever he comes to us.”
11 One day when he came there, he went up to the chamber and lay down there. 12 He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call the Shunammite woman.” When he had called her, she stood before him. 13 He said to him, “Say to her: Since you have taken all this trouble for us, what may be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?” She answered, “I live among my own people.” 14 He said, “What then may be done for her?” Gehazi answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.” 15 He said, “Call her.” When he had called her, she stood at the door. 16 He said, “At this season, in due time, you shall embrace a son.”
While this story of the Shunammite woman is unfamiliar to many, she served as an important symbol among Christians in the 19th century. In American religious history, there was a tradition known as "Shunammite households" which played a crucial role in the development of the frontier and its faith communities.
“In the days when itinerancy meant moving on every few hours, not every few years, the life of one of these traveling preachers was a difficult one. They endured harsh weather, bad roads and poor food as they traveled endlessly about their ‘circuit.” In response to their needs, and out of a sense of commitment to their community's spiritual health, numerous homes along the preacher's way would be designated ‘Shunammite households.; Each of these would maintain a ‘prophet's chamber’ - a room that was always available on a moment's notice to provide hospitality and warmth to those doing God’s work. Like the Shunammite woman's rooftop chamber, this small space would provide the traveling preacher with warmth and privacy - a place to refresh their bodies with sleep, their minds with study and their souls with prayer.
The Shunammite tradition remained a familiar phenomenon in American culture long after the days when preachers rode horseback. If you know any who grew up on farms during the Depression, they undoubtedly recall that the barn and a pile of fresh hay were offered to down-on-their-luck wanderers, even when their requests for employment couldn't be met.
Likewise, there was an understanding of extended family that meant that if someone's uncle's cousin's nephew's son should appear on your doorstep and - after a bit of genealogical figuring - be welcomed into that spare room downstairs. In fact the whole notion of having more bedrooms than family members to fill them is a Shunammite holdover…” There should be a guest room, but if not, there are sofa sleepers, air mattresses and sleeping bags.
But somewhere along the line this Shunammite tradition has become lost, and now has vanished. Most of us wouldn’t dream of opening our home to a complete stranger, because offering shelter comes with the chance of exposing ourselves and our families to some risk. Even the known are now turned away. Think of the homeless.
Things have changed drastically; we are no longer living on the frontier. Can we even revive such an ancient practice? Turning to the Gospel for this day, Jesus reminds us that whoever welcomes the disciple is also welcoming Jesus and, by extension, God. Those are powerful words that should get our attention. Do we welcome others? Are we welcoming in our greeting, our everyday routine?
Take a look at this Shunammite woman and consider her generosity. This was not a random opening of her home; it was instilled in her and in her society.
First, as the text states, she was wealthy. She had the resources and with that, she was able to prepare a room for a guest, along with providing food. As for us, we may not be able to do this, but as is often said: kindness doesn’t cost a thing. We can all be gracious with our manners, in the way that we greet others.
Then, her hospitality is seen when Elisha offers intervention. Her answer: “I have a home among my own people.” In other words, she lived knowing that she had a supportive community watching out for her. So, “whoever she welcomed into her home also enjoyed that protection, and yet shared in the responsibility for her well-being. Under these circumstances no stranger would dare harm his hostess, or steal from her household or abuse her hospitality. This woman's neighbors, who were family, were watching out for her.” We have that as well. While our neighborhoods don’t usually foster this, we have this place; we have friends.
And then, most importantly, she recognized “a man of God.” This wandering man kept appearing. “Her response is one of respect and honor. As a ‘holy man’ he must be let in and made comfortable, and offered the very best there was to offer. While the Shunammite woman immediately recognized God's hand upon the man on her doorstep, she was also aware of the tradition of welcoming that was so established. Remember how Abraham greeted his three visitors. And, Abraham and Sarah did have a child, as does this woman.
Jesus was welcomed. Paul writes of staying with those who had heard him preach. Then there is the verse from Hebrews: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
I am reminded of that daily with all the people I meet. Seeing the face of Christ in the stranger at our door, at our school, or workplace, is going to be a challenge. But a true spirit of hospitality is one that recognizes a child of God within every person we meet.
Jesus is sending his disciples on a mission, adding that as they go, they go with his authority. The verse about offering a cup of water should get our attention. Today, our mission today may be as simple as offering a cup of cold water, the Burrito project, or simply taking a moment to look up from your phone and say Hello. When we do such a thing, Jesus tells us that Jesus, we will be rewarded. Who knows what that means? The important thing is that we do not shirk our calling because a tradition has died, or that we are busy. One pastor wrote: “We have water, don’t we? Then let’s find someone who needs what we have. We have bread, don’t we? Then let’s find someone who needs bread.” The Shunammite woman had food and more to give. So do we. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Help Wanted: Only Shunammites Need Apply
Sunday, July 19, 1992 | 2 Kings 4:8-17
**The post 5 Countries Americans Mistakenly Think Are Dangerous, But Aren't appeared first on Travel Off Path.
Pentecost 4 (Year A)
St. John's, West Seneca
June 21, 2026
In the Gospel message I just read there is a lot to unpack. The most striking sentence from it is:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
And when I describe it as being “striking” or sounding shocking, it is because the words grab our attention; they wake us up to an important lesson. One that the Lord Jesus really wants us to hear.
I am going to re-state the passage for our understanding.
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace and unity. I have not. I have come to offer you a choice; one that will divide people, even loved ones, such as members of families.”
And what is that choice? It is the choice to either be obedient to God’s will or not. It is to love God and follow God’s commandments above every and ALL things. Not an easy chore, my friends.
What I am going to say next will seem unrelated, but it is not, so stay with me.
Today is Father’s Day – Can all the fathers please stand up. Yay!
Let me use fathers as an example of perfect obedience to God. For this you can’t beat the example of Abraham. In what can only be considered a supreme test of faith, God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac – the very child Abraham had been promised by God. Abraham laid his son on the altar and had raised the knife in his hand to sacrifice Issac when an angel of the Lord appeared and ordered him to stop.
That trial of Abraham is a pretty stark example of utmost faith; of Abraham’s absolute obedience to the primacy of the authority of God in his life.
What are our priorities? What takes up your time and energy? What do you spend your extra money on? Is it God driven? Is it God’s will for you?
Also, in today’s passage Jesus attacks the idea of peace. This is confusing, for in the Bible, in God’s word, we find many examples of benign peace. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount said, “Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” In Galatians we have this, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…”
And of course, Jesus is referred to as “The Prince of Peace.” Here again, in speaking of peace Jesus uses stark language to alert us to the reality that in this fallen world there will be others who don’t try, who don’t care, who aren’t interested in following God. Do we compromise our beliefs to “get along” with such people?
In a nutshell, what Jesus is announcing in this passage is that He is laying claim on every human heart. He is also reminding us with the phrase, “to the earth” that he is not of this temporal world. He is the ruler of another Kingdom, an eternal one, and that is the one he is Lord over. We should never forget this. It follows that the temporary, fleeting existence of this world is merely a foretaste of the Heavenly realms. That is the basis for his claim that he should be given greater affection, greater love, greater allegiance than even a member of your family. Remember in the ten commandments we are ordered to “Have no other gods before me.” If all of the members of a family respond to Jesus in this way, you will have peace and harmony. If they don’t then this disagreement, this division will cut right through the relationship like a sword between the family members.
When you think of your own family or some close friend you realize we have all experienced this kind of separation to some extent.
Basically, Jesus is saying you should love me more. He states, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
You know, I have always been struck by the apparent ease in which the original 12 disciples – Yes, even Judas – dropped everything when they first encountered Jesus. He looked at them and said simply, “Follow me.” And they did. They left everything. Talk about re-prioritizing your life in an instant. It obviously created a separation, a division to many of the people in their lives.
The apostle Paul had a similar experience. He was struck down on the road to Damascus and had a vision of Jesus that turned his life around 180 degrees. In the time it took him to fall on his knees he went from being a persecutor of Christians to being a devout believer and the most prolific missionary of the early church. Jesus demands this sort of commitment when he states, “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
Of course, we are not worthy of him. Thank God, we can be forgiven for falling short. All we need to do is humbly ask for redemption.
The important point is where do we put our priorities. In today’s passage the emphasis is on families, but the message is much broader; it applies to everything in your life – political parties, your job, the nation, your hobbies, even the Buffalo Bills. God commands that He be our number 1 priority. He is the one who we should strive to please first.
In short, He demands that He have the supreme place in our hearts, always. Amen.
3 Pentecost (Year A)
Matthew 9 and 10
St. John’s, West Seneca
June 14, 2026
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
In front of us today is what our marching orders are…and they include preaching and teaching, even healing. And yes, you are expected to be this voice in the world.
But first comes a description of Jesus’s concern for those in need of the good news we bring. “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
“Compassion.” Jesus’s experience is not simply a feeling, an “Oh, I am so sorry,” but a physical reaction that happens way down in the pit of his stomach. This is not just an acknowledgement that someone is hurting; it is a bodily connection to what the people are going through. No mere lip service here, but authentic feeling.
The Greek word is “splagcnizomai.” We translate it as “Empathy,” “pity” and “sympathy,” but those words simply do not carry the weight of what this word means. Our best translation is: gut feeling. This word shows up in other passages in the Gospels: in the Feeding of the 5000 narratives, and in the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.
Compassion and empathy are getting bad press, as though it were a weakness. This is not a weakness but a sign of strength. Also, the words do not mean the same. One definition is that empathy is the emotional ability to understand and share the feelings of another, then compassion takes it a step further by actively desiring and taking steps to alleviate that suffering. Empathy is the “heart’s feeling,” and compassion is the “heart’s movement.”
Last year Elon Musk set off a storm when he said that empathy is a fundamental weakness of Western civilization, arguing that it could be exploited. What he meant has been argued over and over. Only he knows. What struck me was that contradicts the Bible, and especially the Gospels. Our God is not weak.
Hannah Arendt, who coined the phrase “the banality of evil,” stated that “the death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.” If you may remember, she wrote about the aftermath of World War II and the Nuremburg trials.
Jesus does not lead us into a fall. Time and time again, we are given the directive to have empathy and compassion, and yes, mercy. Jesus sees all. The passage says that Jesus sees the people as being “harassed” and “helpless.” Again, language has limitations, and those are weak translations. A better translation is that they are “flayed” or “skinned,” or that they have been “cast down” or “prostrated,” somewhat like being wounded. And they are like that because they have no leader. They are sheep without a shepherd. I am reminded of the Old Testament prophetic admonitions against shepherds (the leaders of Israel) who are not properly shepherding their sheep (the people of Israel). This is most pointedly in Ezekiel, wherein God warns that God will do the shepherding if the leaders continue to fail their people.*
Jesus has a deeply visceral response to people portrayed as damaged goods. Just as he sees us now. And so, it is time to move forward and gather up the broken. Here Jesus uses the imagery of the harvest. Where there is a harvest, you need harvesters, people to do just that…laborers, in other words, us.
Those first laborers are named, and you will notice that now they are called “apostles.” After Matthew names those twelve, they are then sent on to the task at hand. And they are sent forth, giving them authority. They are given instructions where to go, how to act, and what to expect.
Beyond what I read today and in the CELEBRATE Jesus continues: “Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”
After that, they can expect challenges, even suffering.
And it all begins with empathy and compassion. How can it not? The world is not that much different. Unfortunately, human beings haven’t changed that much. I don’t agree with Elon Musk that empathy is weakness. I find it silly, and so should you. The church is built on Jesus Christ, the Son of God who was never weak.
Attributed to the anthropologist Margaret Mead is the idea that an advanced society is one that includes care for the less fortunate. It was believed that in ancient times, a wounded person would be left behind, of no use to a group.
But as she worked she discovered that, “evidence of the earliest true civilization was a healed femur, a leg bone… She explained that such healings were never found in the remains of competitive, savage societies. There, clues of violence abounded: temples pierced by arrows, skulls crushed by clubs. But the healed femur showed that someone must have cared for the injured person—hunted on his behalf, brought him food, and served him at personal sacrifice.” Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: A Surgeon Looks at the Human and Spiritual Body” by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey.
That is who we are to be, always looking out for one another and our neighbors. Jesus lays it out for us. Look on the world, see what is broken, feel that and then take action. Because if we as Christians don’t do this, how can we possibly live out our vocations?
“There’s an old story about an American Methodist medical missionary named George Harley. In 1926, after completing medical school, George and his wife Winifred sailed for Liberia to serve as missionaries. He declined an offer to become chief of staff at a hospital in the capital city, Monrovia. Instead, they headed for the bush.
"After walking for 17 days and nights, the two of them established a mission station. They constructed three simple huts: a medical dispensary, a chapel and their residence. In no time at all, they were treating hundreds of patients a day. There, Winifred gave birth to their first child, a boy they named Dickie.
"The medical practice was thriving, but not one of the locals ever set foot in the chapel. ‘They let me doctor their bodies, but they wouldn’t take my gospel,’ George later explained to a friend.
"Then tragedy struck. Their 4-year-old son contracted a tropical fever and died. George constructed a little coffin out of wood and laid Dickie in it. He lifted it onto his shoulders and started down to the clearing where he could bury his boy.
"‘One of the old men in the village saw me and said, ‘Where are you going?’,” George recounted. ‘And I said, ‘My boy, he’s gone away. He died.’ And the man said, ‘Here, let me help you.’
"The man helped George dig the grave and the two of them lowered the small coffin into the ground. After they’d covered up the grave, George recalled, ‘I just couldn’t stand it any longer. I fell on my knees and began to cry my heart out. The old man cocked his head, squatted down beside me, and looked at me so strangely. He sat there for a long time, and then he jumped to his feet and went running back through the jungle, screaming at the top of his voice, ‘White man, white man — he cries like one of us!’
"That night, he and Winifred were in their hut, sitting at the table, quietly grieving. ‘There was a knock at the door. The first knock in five years. I went to the door and there stood the chief. I looked past him, and there stood every man, woman, and child in the village. The next Sunday morning, the whole village was in the chapel, and outside, and looking in the windows. From that time on, I was in.’”
There must be more than just dispensing medications, or advice. We must be empathetic and have compassion, to feel with others, and try to understand.
That story ends with this: After George had told this story, his friend said: “George, to get through, to break in, you had to give your son.’ George said, ‘Yes, but what do you think it cost God?’”**
That is God, the father of Jesus, the one we follow. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria.
*Homiletics, June 21, 2026
**—Paraphrased from Stephen Seamands, Give Them Christ: Preaching His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and Return (InterVarsity, 2012), 38-41.
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