Forgiving Our Debts (Reflections on Pentecost 16, Year A 2026)

 

“So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (Matthew 18:35)

I really love the collect for Pentecost 16, Year A in the Evangelical Lutheran Worship book:

“O Lord God, merciful judge, you are the inexhaustible fountain of forgiveness. Replace our hearts of stone with hearts that love and adore you, that we may delight in doing your will.”

That’s so cool that God’s love is an “inexhaustible fountain” which makes us find “delight” in doing what God wants us to do. Granted, we don’t always find delight in obedience to God. Forgiveness, the subject of the gospel lesson for Pentecost 16 (Matthew 18:21-35), is something we sometimes have to do through gritted teeth.

In Jesus’ parable of the “Unforgiving Servant,” we see a rich guy—probably some kind of landowner or taxing authority—and his servant or slave or serf or something. The slave owes the boss money. Lots of money. Like twenty years’ salary worth of money. He’ll be dead before he can pay off this note. Jesus doesn’t tell us how the guy got so deep into the hole. He may have been the victim of predatory lending, he may have just been a doofus with money, or he may have gambled himself into the crapper. All we know is he owes way more than he can pay, and he comes groveling and whining before his lord, begging for more time.

Then the lord does something rather unexpected for the uber wealthy. He puts aside his rapacious greed, feels sorry for the poor slob, and forgives him the entire debt! I’ll bet the folks listening to Jesus said to each other, “Yeah! Like that would ever happen!” In the world of this text debt slavery was an everyday occurrence. A debtor could be sold if he was a slave or tossed in the clink for non-payment if he was a freeman. And that was not just in Jesus’ time. That stuff still goes on all over the world—even in the United States.

If you’ve ever had a big debt like a student loan or a mortgage or even a car loan, you know how good it feels when you finally get out from under it. When you make that last payment on the once maxed-out VISA card, you feel like you’ve just lost forty pounds and you want to go skipping down the avenue whistling “Zippi Dee Do Dah.”

But not this guy. Oh no. Now that he’s debt free, he wants to start spending all over again. He finds one of his buddies who owes him a few bucks. He was probably acting like a big shot by loaning the guy money he’d borrowed from their landed master in the first place. Now, instead of chilling out and being grateful to have his life back again, he chucks his buddy into debtors’ prison when the other guy can’t pay. Some fellow serfs see this as a really mean-spirited act, so they snitch on the unforgiving serf to the lord, who, disgusted by the guy’s lack of either gratitude or compassion, has him jailed until he can pay off his original debt (which he probably can’t do).

(Just for fun, the Greek here literally reads, “And being angry, his lord delivered him up to the tormentors until he should pay all that was owing to him.” The Greek word for “tormentors” is basanistais, which could also be translated as “jailors.” I guess jailors in Jesus’ time were pretty rough dudes. Basically, the serf was handed over to the collection agency.)

In the Greek of Matthew’s gospel the word for debt (opheile) is interchangeable with wrong, sin, or guilt. Hence, in Matthew 6:12, Jesus tells us to pray that God will forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. I guess we’ve substituted the word “trespass” in our liturgical use of the Lord’s Prayer because trespassing is crossing a line which ought not to be crossed. It doesn’t carry with it the financial connotation of the word “debt.” Nevertheless, in Jesus’ day, any wrongdoing—weather it was to God or anyone else—was an obligation for which one would have to atone or pay off. To forgive an injury would be to release someone from that obligation or cancel their debt. And sometimes we just want people to pay up.

I always like to ask which character we identify with in this parable. Are we the ungrateful, unempathetic, self-involved debtor? Are we the uncharacteristically generous but ultimately judgmental lord? (One can be both, you know.) Are we the servant whose small debt has landed him in big trouble? Are we the self-righteous snitches who talk against someone instead of talking to them?

One thing’s for sure: we’re probably not Jesus. We might, however, be Simon Peter who asked Jesus the question about forgiveness in the first place. You have to wonder if Peter was getting to his last nerves with someone and just wanted to know where the red line would be before he didn’t have to forgive but could cold cock the guy.

Jesus has to teach him there is no red line. We are to forgive. Period. Like the serf in the parable, we all have been forgiven debts we could never repay on our own. We need to bathe in that inexhaustible fountain of God’s mercy and find the delight which comes from obedience to God’s will. Forgiveness does not depend on the contrition of the wrongdoer. It depends on the heart of the one who is wronged. Jesus told us what we loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven, but what we bind on earth will be bound in Heaven. When we fail to learn the delight of forgiveness, we are delivered up to the tormentor. And the tormentor is ourselves.

May you find delight in the will of God this week, my friend. Thank you for reading. Leave a note and let me know you were here, okay?

Don't be a Jerk (Reflections on Pentecost 15, Year A 2026)

 

As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from their ways and live. (Ezekeil 33:11a)

Don’t be a jerk.

I could end this essay with the above sentence. As I read through the lessons in the Revised Common Lectionary for Pentecost 15 Year A[i], I can’t help but notice they’re all about doing the right thing and getting along with folks—even folks who treat you like crap. The lessons the Church gives us for this Sunday in Ordinary Time are simply reminders to behave ourselves as if we’ve actually heard the gospel and not to lower ourselves to the standards of those who’ve hurt our feelings or oppose us in some way.

Just don’t be a jerk. It’s a simple phrase, but it’s pretty hard to follow in practice. We’re all sinners in a sinful world. In Moses’ day the answer to sin was simply to execute those who committed it. It’s like he thought, “There are going to be fewer but better Hebrews.” I guess you can see where the problem lies with that line of thinking. The followers of Jesus weren’t so quick to impose capital punishment, but they sometimes had to resort to excommunication. It was better to kick out the troublemakers. The idea was those who had doctrinal differences or who chickened out and denied Jesus or who were just plain pains in the butt might someday repent and be allowed back into the community. After all, it’s kind of hard to show contrition once you’re dead. A little time alone could make them reconsider their behavior.

We in the Church today aren’t that big on threatening excommunication. Okay. I know. The Roman Catholic Church still blocks folks from the communion rail for divorce and remarriage, but they don’t forbid them from attending mass. By and large more Christians simply walk away from the Church than get thrown out.

Church discipline might not be such a big deal for my peeps here at tiny Faith Lutheran of Northeast Philadelphia. We all seem to get along rather well. Nevertheless, Jesus is trying to teach us in this gospel reading the right way to go about resolving differences. In this time of hyper polarization in America, disagreements can flare into arguments, and political discussions can ignite fistfights. People stop talking to members of their own family. We’d be well advised to practice what our Lord teaches us.

The first—and most important if you ask me—bit of instruction Jesus gives us is to deal with conflict privately (v.15). If you’ve got a beef with someone, it’s not the classy thing to do to chew them out in front of others, or talk about them behind their backs, or post your outrage on social media. Go to the other person when the two of you are alone. If that doesn’t work, Jesus says to talk to the offender in the presence of one or two others. I should explain Jesus is talking here about discipline within the Christian community. In the context of our gospel lesson, you can’t boot somebody out of the church on just one person’s say-so. Jesus is probably referencing the Old Testament rule against putting anyone to death on the word of just one witness.[ii]

In this world where we spend chunks of our lives with our noses pressed to the screens of our mobile phones, it’s not a bad idea to learn how to talk to somebody one-on-one again. I heard a podcast[iii] recently which gave me some pointers on how to do this.

The first tip is stop, look, and listen. Ask yourself, “Who am I in the other guy’s story? An accuser? An uninformed nincompoop who needs to be put right? Somebody who has committed an offense? A threat?” The important thing is not to be defensive. You’re not trying to “win.” You’re trying to reconcile. Just listen first.

Step two: Without scorn or sarcasm repeat the other person’s point of view as you understand it. What is the value they’re articulating? You can say something like, “Clearly such-and-such value is important to you, and I’ve let you feel I don’t respect it.”

Thirdly, if you can get to a point of agreement on something, you might be able to get your friend to question their own position. You can try a little Socratic questioning. “Do you really believe I don’t care about (whatever it is)?” “Would you agree/disagree with this policy had a politician of the other party done/said this same thing?”

Finally, you don’t ever want to walk away mad. If the conversation gets too heated, you can tell the other person, “I value our relationship more than I value winning this debate.” You don’t have to get scolded or yelled at. You can walk away. Just don’t ghost the other person. Always leave the door open for reconciliation. Jesus never gave up on us. We shouldn’t give up on each other.

Ezekiel teaches us we have a duty to speak truth to one another. Paul reminds us not to repay evil with more evil. Jesus hung on the cross to forgive all of us.

So don’t be a jerk.

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[i] Ezekeil 33:7-11, Psalm 119:33-40, Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:15-20

[ii] Deuteronomy 17:6.

[iii] No. I don’t remember which podcast. I’ll admit this is plagiarism, but I don’t remember from whom I’m stealing. When you get to be my age, you forget what you’ve had for breakfast most days.

God's Bait and Switch (Reflections on Pentecost 14, Year A 2026)

 

“For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” (Matthew 16:26)

I guess my favorite Christmas movie—and one of my favorite movies of all time for many reasons—is It’s a Wonderful Life. That old Frank Capra chestnut makes me a little bit sad in spite of its happy ending. Poor George Baily has always wanted adventure ever since he was a kid reading National Geographic. He wants his shot at traveling the world and seeing and doing things which are far outside the realm of his small hometown. Unfortunately for him, life intervenes, and he ends up spending his life in Beford Falls running his dad’s building and loan company. Of course, as the movie’s title suggests, George realizes that the real adventure has been living everyday life and discovering the seemingly small things he’s done haven’t been small after all.

Have you ever felt that God has pulled a bait and switch on you? Maybe you thought your life was going in one direction, but things happened, and you found yourself someplace you never imagined you’d be. If someone had told me in 1985 when I was scoring my first professional gigs as an actor that I’d wake up one morning and discover I’d been a Lutheran pastor in Philadelphia for almost twenty-eight years, I would’ve asked them what they’d been smoking.[i] But God’s ways aren’t our own, are they?

That’s rather the point of the gospel lesson. In last week’s gospel, Peter gets a big pat on the back from Jesus for correctly IDing the rabbi as the promised Messiah, the Son of the living God.[ii] In the RCL gospel for Pentecost 14, Year A (Matthew 16:21-28), Jesus explains what being the Messiah (a designation which he’s not too keen to have broadcast by his buddies, mind you) means—and it’s not what these guys think. They were picturing a fairyland of long-past glory which none of them had ever experienced but had built up in their imaginations. I’ll bet they must’ve been scratching their heads and thinking Jesus was pulling a royal switcheroo on them when he tells them the Messiah must undergo suffering at the hands of the authorities and be killed so he can rise again. This isn’t the way they saw things going, and it certainly isn’t what they wanted as Peter made plain.

So, just for gits and shiggles, let’s imagine what would’ve happened had Jesus been the sort of Messiah these boys thought they wanted. The charismatic rabbi rallies a loyal following. All of Galilee and Judea and even some Samaritans come to see him as their divinely appointed leader. They form a massive army of resistance against their oppressive Roman overloads. They subvert the occupiers and wage war against them. Thousands die as a result. Would they be successful? They actually tried this around 70 CE, and it didn’t turn out well; nevertheless, let’s assume the Romans are thrown out. What then? Jesus assumes the throne of his ancestor David. Would the people listen to him? Would he create a utopia on earth? Would the people be more enlightened than they’d been? Would there be peace forevermore? Or would they become complacent and self-satisfied and just as sinful as they’d been before? Would the new kingdom last forever, or would it be just another memory of past glory when a bigger and stronger adversary came along?

But that’s not how it all played out. This Messiah came to suffer and die and enter our life of pain and disappointment. And, because he did, his kingdom lives on when kingdoms and empires of earthly glory have become nothing more than pages in history books. There are those in America today who want to see the triumph of Christianity in all aspects of life. They should realize the only real triumph hung on a cross and was found in an empty tomb.

The glories of this world are ephemeral. They come and they go. The glory of God lives in the heart, in faith, hope, and love. Jesus challenges all of us to ask what will it profit should we gain the whole world but lose our life? That word which is translated from the Greek as “life” is a tricky one.[iii] It doesn’t mean just biological life. It means selfhood or inner life—that which makes you who you are. It can sometimes (as in the King James Bible) be translated as “soul,” but that’s also misleading. We often think to lose one’s soul means to go to Hell, but what Jesus is saying here is the pursuit of false or worldly or somebody else’s values can mean to lose your own purpose and become something or someone God never intended you should be. Have you ever asked yourself, “If I were the person I thought I wanted to be, would I be the person I am?”

Sometimes I feel a little like old George Baily in that movie. I judge and compare myself to others’ lives and forget that what God wants for me may be different from what I think I want. But then I think there’s something right and purposeful in my being where and who I am in this holy moment in time.

And there is something special and wonderful about you being where you are too.

May God bless, enlighten, and protect you and all whom you love this week and always. Thank you for your visit. Please come again.

 

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[i] And, in 1985, I’d also ask them if they wouldn’t mind sharing some of it.

[ii] Matthew 16:16

[iii] The Greek word is psuke for you Greek fans.

Spiritual Gifts, Not Spiritual Hierarchy (Reflections on Pentecost 13, Year A 2026)

 

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

We hear a lot in America today about socialism, communism, and fascism. I’ll bet a lot of folks who sling those words around don’t really know what they mean. Dr. Heather Cox Richardson, a professor of American history at Boston College, summarizes fascism as “the belief that some people are better than others.[i]” I’m not about to call our early Christian ancestors “fascists,” but this hierarchical system was exactly what Saint Paul was dealing with when he wrote his great epistle to the Romans.

In the Second Lesson for Pentecost 13 in the Revised Common Lectionary (Romans 12:1-8) Paul is doing what every good pastor struggles to do: hold together a bunch of people with different backgrounds, different opinions, and different personalities who are all trying to navigate a changing culture in a frightening world.

Here’s a little back story. The Gospel of Jesus Christ had reached the city of Rome well before Paul ever got around to visiting the Christian community there. By 56 or 57 CE., however, Paul had become the rock star of the Christian faith. His reputation was preceding him and, even though he was busy trying to get those crazy Corinthians to behave themselves, the Christians in Rome were just as anxious to see or hear from him as he was to see them. The best Paul could do was write them a long letter which he sent to them courtesy of a lady named Phoebe, a deacon from the nearby port town of Cenchreae. Phoebe, apparently, was pretty flush with cash and could afford to support Paul and travel around the Mediterranean world delivering his mail. Paul wanted to address the Roman Christians’ concerns, let them know he was planning a visit, get them to kick in a few bucks to help out the starving church back in Jerusalem,[ii] and support his further missionary efforts in Spain (a trip he was never able to make)[iii].

Back around 49 CE Emperor Claudius decided he didn’t like Jews, so he kicked them out of Rome. This meant that Jewish Christians also had to leave town. When Claudius died, the Jews moved back, only to find that the church was now run by a new group of primarily Gentile Christians. It’s the old story—a clash between the Old Guard and those young whippersnappers who think they know it all. This is what Paul was facing in the church at Rome.

Paul urged the Romans to look with the eyes of Christ and not to be conformed to the ways of the age. After all, the way of Roman society was always to divide people into social classes. If you lived in that society, you knew there were Patricians and Plebians—the rich folks and the not-so-rich folks—with some minor sub-categories in each group. Paul urged Christians not to model the church on those kinds of worldly distinctions, but to look at one another with the eyes of Christ.

If you read through the Pauline epistles, you’ll see Paul making this same argument again and again. He reminds the Galatians that being Jewish doesn’t make you a better Christian (and you don’t need to be circumcised!)[iv]. He dresses down the Corinthians for humiliating the less affluent members of the church by leaving them out of the Lord’s Supper[v]. His aim is always to turn the nascent Christians away from worldly values and love one another in fraternal community. His request to the mostly Gentile Christians of Rome to send aid to the mostly Jewish Christians of Jerusalem is not just a humanitarian effort but an attempt to reconcile two factions within the Christian movement.

The Gospel Paul preaches is one which humbles the exalted and exalts the humble. If you’re in Christ, there’s no one better than you and no one worse. My work as an ordained pastor does not make me a superior Christian. I don’t deserve to be treated with any more respect than the next person, and the next person should be treated with no less respect than that with which I am treated.

God doesn’t assign us positions of status. What God does assign are spiritual gifts. Each of us has something to offer for the good of the rest of us. Martin Luther taught that every Christian is in some way a priest. That is, each of us has the ability to pray and make intercession for others, and any work we do for the good of society is Godly work. In this passage Paul mentions three gifts which I find of note.

Prophecy is not about predicting the future. Any of us could be a prophet by taking a firm grasp on the obvious and declaring that, should things go on as they are, there will be a predictable end. When your mom warned you to look both ways on a busy street, she was being a prophet. Prophets don’t predict what will happen, they warn us about what may happen.

Paul marries sincerity to generosity. There are right reasons to give, and not-so-right reasons. If you make a huge donation to get your name on some wall, that’s not charity. It’s commerce. If you give out of guilt or obligation, that’s coercion. If, however, you give because you truly believe your gift makes a positive impact, that’s a blessing.

Finally, Paul tells us the gift of compassion is cheerfulness. This sounds a little counterintuitive. After all, when you’re dealing with a serious emotional issue, you don’t want to be around someone who is grinning like they’re a toke over the line and cracking jokes. Neither do you want someone whose pessimism or anger or judgmental nature mirrors your own at that moment. You need someone whose true joy in the Lord is so deep in their heart that they can cry their eyes out with you but not leave you hopeless.

To sum it all up? It’s just about living every day seeking the way of Christ.

My mind can always use some renewing, so please leave me a comment if you wish. Thanks for reading, my friend, and thanks for being part of the Church.

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[i] I don’t actually have a source for this quote, but if you ask Dr. Richardson, she’ll tell you she said it.

[ii] Jerusalem got hit with a nasty famine around 44-48 CE.

[iii] See Romans 15:22-33.

[iv][iv] See Galatians 2:11-21

[v] See 1 Corinthians 11:17-22

Of Hearts and Pharisees (Reflections on Pentecost 12, Year A 2026)

 

“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and that is what defiles.” (Matthew 15:18)

Just what’s up with the Pharisees? These uber-religious guys are always the villains in our Gospel story, and Jesus gives them a royal smack-down in the lesson we have in the Revised Common Lectionary for Pentecost 12, A this year (Matthew 15:10-28). Back at the top of chapter 15 of Matthew’s Gospel, the Pharisees are getting their shorts bunched up because Jesus’ disciples have eaten without ritually washing their hands. This has got to make you ask: Don’t these guys have something better to do than complain about other people’s luncheon hygiene? Why are they freaking out about something which isn’t going to matter five minutes from now and will be forgotten by tomorrow? How petty can these dudes get?

I’ve always had something of a soft spot for the Pharisees myself. After all, they are the ancestors of modern rabbinic Judaism, and that should count for something. As annoying as they are to Jesus, we should consider they really were very pious people who were just doing their best to live up to the Law of Moses. Unfortunately, they had their heads stuck so far up into the details of the law that they had lost sight of its purpose. In a way, I feel sorry for them. They had a lot of prestige in their day, but they still weren’t the party in power[i]. They could take pride in being the descendants of Abraham and relish tales of the glory days when King David kicked butts and took names or when King Solomon’s reputation was the envy of the ancient world. In this story, however, they were a minor party in a tiny, defeated, and occupied country where they didn’t control the religious or governmental establishment, and the guys who did were themselves puppets of a foreign dictator in Rome. For all their legalistic piety and knowledge, I’ll bet it had to suck to be a Pharisee.

I think circumstances explain a lot about Jesus’ critics. They’d been told about their glorious past, but their present was far from glorious. When you don’t have much control over the stuff in your life, you become a psycho fanatic about the piddly stuff you can control. That explains why Grandpa goes berserk whenever someone messes with the thermostat. He used to be the guy who brought home the bacon, could fix anything that needed repairing, and gave detailed driving directions to anywhere you needed to go. Now he’s using a walker, wearing Depends, and has been made to surrender his car keys; nevertheless, he will—by God!—control that thermostat. The Pharisees are the same way. They may not control much, but they can still be smugly judgmental about people who are less pious or holy than they are.

Jesus needed to set these guys straight. The dinky rules the Pharisees were so upset about—like what or how you ate—doesn’t matter to God. What always matters is what is in the heart. Jesus even scolds them in front of the crowd for their lack of insight. He reminds his own disciples—and us, too—that contempt for others is a defilement.

All of this seems a little odd when verses 10-20 are juxtaposed with verses 21-28. When the Canaanite lady with a demonically possessed daughter comes to Jesus begging for help, he first ignores her and then calls her a dog. I don’t know about you, but this seems a little contemptuous to me, especially if you consider that, in the world of the text, dogs didn’t enjoy quite the level of favor they have in our modern society.[ii] I’m always a bit puzzled by this. Did this woman’s response to Jesus’ calling her a dog actually change the Lord’s mind, or did Jesus purposely insult her just so he could demonstrate to the disciples that even a foreigner was capable of compassionate insight? I like to thank it was the latter.

As a parish pastor, I often find myself confronted by people begging for mercy and compassion. If a member of my congregation—a sheep of my flock—is in need, there isn’t a whole lot I wouldn’t do if it’s in my power to do it. But, when the local mendicants come knocking at the church door, I turn into a Pharisee, or—like the disciples in the story—I want to send them away because they’re often really annoying. There have been a small number of homeless folks who’ve been buzzing around Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia for the last few years. One I know has a drug problem and others are just emotionally immature folks who either can’t or don’t want to advocate for themselves. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but they bug the crap out of me.

When I get judgmental like this, I have to take a step back and recognize the Pharisee in me. The contempt in my heart is what defiles me. It doesn’t matter if these unfortunate folks are in a situation of their own making. I don’t have any control over that. I do, however, have control over what’s in my heart and how I treat them. I am called to treat them with the same love and regard Jesus showed to the Canaanite woman. My little church does not have the financial resources to get these folks off the street, but I can fill their gas tank, show them how to use the internet to find cheap lodging, let them use the church’s address for the delivery of their SNAP card, or give them a bottle of cold water on a hot day. It may be only a crumb, but it’s something.

We all have a little of the Pharisee in us, and we’re all called to keep a watch on our hearts.

Thank you for visiting me again this week. Don’t be shy about leaving a comment. I always like to know what you think. God bless!

  

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[i] That would be the Sadducees. They were the “money class” and had lots of influence in the Temple.

[ii] I am personally quite fond of dogs. In fact, if my wife’s 9-year-old female shih tzu were magically transformed into a human child, I couldn’t love her any more or spoil her any less than I do now.

"Courage!" (Reflections on Pentecost 11, Year A 2026)

But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” (Matthew 9: 27)

Imagine this: You and the family take a summer vacation in Wildwood. It’s really hot, so you go down to the beach, spread your blanket, and cool off from the sticky humidity by wading into the cool Atlantic swell. The water is blue like the sky. It feels fresh and invigorating against your skin. You wade out a little further until you’re up to your armpits. You’re having a lovely time splashing around and listening to the seagulls when—suddenly—the gentle whitecaps start to turn a dirty brown and a force like a giant vacuum cleaner sucks you right off your feet and begins to pull you away from the shore. You flail around and try to dogpaddle your way back to land, but the current keeps pulling you further away. You’re getting knocked around like a rubber duck and a big wave deposits a salty gulp of water right down your throat. You cough and choke. Your strength starts to give out. You’re in a rip current. What do you do?

One thing’s for sure. If you panic, you’ll die.

In Israel’s scriptures, the sea was often a symbol of chaos. Even an inland water like the Sea of Galilee could be unpredictable, changing in minutes from a glassy calm to a violent, destructive monster causing panic even for experienced sailors.

The community to whom Matthew wrote our Gospel lesson for Pentecost 11, Year A (Matthew 14:22-33) knew its share of chaos. This nascent family of believers must’ve been considered radically dangerous. They’d turned their backs on a hierarchical social structure that ordered the society in which they lived. They ignored purity laws for the sake of inclusion. They refused to submit to an empire’s idolatry. Their reward for this was persecution and abandonment. They lived with constant uncertainty, and uncertainty is scary. After all, don’t we all fear the unknown?

We’re living with a heavy dose of the unknown at the moment, aren’t we? Just look at the nightly TV news. Floods destroy neighborhoods or entire towns. Tornados and hurricanes ravage communities. Wildfires burn out of control and destroy thousands of acres. In a single evening’s weather report, we experience all the frightening chaos Elijah experienced on Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:9-18). We might even experience the horrible silence the prophet experienced at the mouth of the cave—the soul-crushing experience of failure and solitude.

At such chaotic moments, we call out for God. Like Peter, we cry, “Lord, save me!”

How does Jesus respond? He says to us, “Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.” The words “take heart” are, in Greek, one word: tharseite. It’s the imperative form of the noun tharseo, which translates as “Courage!” Then Jesus says, “It is I.” The Greek here is ego eimi, literally “I am,” the divine name for God. Courage, he says. God is.

As you thrash around in the tormenting clutches of the rip current, you might see the still-blue sky above you and remember God is. God who made the sky and the awful, unpredictable sea has also made you. In the midst of the swirling confusion, you stop struggling against the current. You swim to the side. You relax your frenzied limbs and wave to the lifeguard who is coming to your rescue. “Courage,” he calls to you. “Don’t be afraid.” You float for a while and follow his directions when he comes near. Now you feel safe.

From Matthew’s day to our own the Church has always lived with uncertainty. This is not a problem because rarely do any of us gain wisdom from circumstances which aren’t chaotic, uncertain, or in some way a crisis.

I recently heard a podcast about the decline of mainline Protestant denominations in the U.S. The podcaster opined that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has been steadily losing members while the conservative Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has remained stable because the ELCA has embraced progressive cultural ideas while the LCMS has remained steadfast and traditional in its doctrines. When the ELCA takes down the barriers which have estranged liberally minded people from the organized church, such people do not suddenly stampede into our pews. Conservatives leave the church, but progressive don’t join. Perhaps the cultural liberals feel they can respect the LGBTQ+ community, support gender equality, and champion reproductive freedom without having to get up on a Sunday morning.

I respect those folks for their social conscience, but I think they’re missing out on what we have. We have the words of life which inspire us every week. We have a community which becomes a family. We have the traditions of the faith with which we mark the seasons of the year, which give us a sense of belonging, and which bring us comfort and order in the face of a rapidly changing world. Most of all, we have Jesus. He is our rescuer, our guide to Godly life, our model of sacrificial love, our constant reminder that we are loved and valued, and—most important of all—our never-failing hope of resurrection.

“Courage,” he says. “I am here. Do not be afraid.” May his presence be with you to give you courage this week and always.

The Lord Will Provide (Reflections on Pentecost 10, Year A 2026)

 

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

We at Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia are extremely fortunate to number among our parishioners the Reverend Natt Pour. Pastor Natt (as we call him) is an ordained pastor from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Liberia. You might think that an immigrant coming from such an impoverished and frequently war-scarred nation might carry with him a certain aspect of melancholy, but, quite to the contrary, Pastor Natt is perennially cheerful and optimistic. That’s why we love him. There always seems to be just a little more sunshine in the room when this joyful and frequently picturesquely appareled cleric is around.

Some months back Pastor Natt made a request of the congregation for donations of old or obsolete computer equipment which could be used by the school kids at his home congregation in Africa. Bob, another parishioner with a similarly cherubic disposition, was in contact with an IT guy who had veritable bonanza of old computers, laptops, and tablets he was anxious to be rid of. When Bob dropped off this treasure trove of technology, I had to ask Pastor Natt how he would get the money to ship all this equipment to Liberia. Natt just gave me one of his iridescent smiles and said, “The Lord will provide.”

The Lord will provide, as Abraham told Isaac on Mt. Moriah[i]. That’s certainly been true in my life, even though I constantly find myself doubting the providence. I remember when I graduated from seminary—lo those many years ago—I had a Master of Divinity degree and no church to pastor.

Even those who have been Lutherans since their infant baptism may not be aware of the complexity of the ordination process for our clergy. A seminary degree does not immediately make one a pastor. There is an entire bureaucratic process to undergo. Strangely, this process moves rather swiftly until one gets to the most crucial point—the call of a congregation. You see, in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America one is not a pastor until a congregation says one is. This is where the process slows down to the speed of an arthritic tortoise. A congregation is an entirely volunteer organization, and it takes its good, sweet time about making decisions. Upon my graduation I had put aside about three months’ worth of savings. It would be six months before I drew a real paycheck.

You’ll note I did not starve. I don’t know how my meagre savings stretched to cover rent and food and utilities for an extra three months, but somehow, they did. The Lord provided. This is just one of the many times in my life when penury licked its lips in my direction but failed to swallow me.

In 2022 the church’s treasurer and I counted the beans and concluded that, should the congregation’s expenses and income follow their current trajectory, Faith Lutheran would be closing her doors for good by the following Easter. Four years later we’re still up and running. The Lord has provided.

All four of our Gospel witnesses include the story the RCL gives us for Pentecost 10, Year A (Matthew 14:13-21). The wonderful miracle story of the loaves and fish should be a reminder to us of God’s desire to see all of us get our daily bread. This is a tale of God’s abundance amidst our human fear of scarcity. I think it’s darn Christian of the disciples to care about the hunger of the crowd (v. 15), but more significant is Jesus’ reaction to the situation. He tells the crowd to sit down. Then he says a blessing over the food he has. He doesn’t lament a potential shortfall. He gives thanks for the goodness which God provided, and he trusts that it will be sufficient.

We can be grateful, or we can be fretful, but we cannot be both simultaneously. When we say grace, we are in grace. Our acknowledgment of God’s goodness doesn’t leave a lot of room for our anxiety. When scarcity exists, it's because of our lack of sharing. It's not because of God's lack of providing.

If we put this story in context, we should notice it comes right after the beheading of John the Baptist. In verse 13 Matthew tells us that Jesus, upon learning of John’s decapitation, wanted to go and be by himself for a while. Can you blame the guy? Even if you’re the only begotten Son of God the violent death of someone you love has to take something out of you. If you’ve ever been through a bereavement or some other emotionally draining experience, you’ll know how the Savior was feeling. Some things in life just suck all the emotional energy out of you like a plague of mosquitos with the munchies. But Jesus isn’t given a chance to grieve in this story. A bunch of folks with sick relatives and no awareness of personal boundaries come chasing after him. You’d think he was well within his rights to tell them to shove off and give him some space. But no. Jesus’ tank of compassion hadn’t hit “E.” The Lord provided. Even when we think we’ve got nothing left, when someone has drained the last ounce of our patience and endurance, when life is suffocating us and we can’t breathe, God’s Holy Spirit can still give us the guidance, the love, and the energy we need to get to the other side of our grief, frustration, despair, and weariness. The Lord provides.

A final thought: Who are we in this story? Who are you? Are you one of the hungry multitude or one of the disciples, worried that you don’t have what it takes to fulfill Jesus’ direction to care for the others? Jesus tells his followers, “You give them something to eat.” Would he give us this command if he didn’t think we had enough?

Thanks for stopping by this week. Give thanks to the Lord in all things and leave me a comment if you wish.

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[i] Gen. 22:14