Text: Matthew 13:44-52
Date: Pentecost VI + Proper 12 + 7/24/11
Dearly Beloved,
God loves you.
Now, that may not strike you as being any big, new news. And that would be unfortunate. God loves you. But you’ve heard it before. Don’t we already know that? John 3:16 and all; ‘God so loved the world,’ etc.? “Jesus loves me, this I know….” Continue reading “God Loves You”
Text: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Date: Pentecost V + Proper 11 + 7/17/11
This is the way the kingdom of heaven is, the way God rules His Church and His world for now. “For now” is all the days between our Lord’s earthly ministry and the Last Day of His return in judgment. We’re not there yet. When that Day happens, when this era is over, then will be unveiled the direct, complete, full reign of God in all the splendor, glory and perfection of the life of the world to come. But “for now” God’s rule is hidden. It is happening already and yet it is not seen fully with the eye. In the parable of the Weeds our Lord is reassuring and encouraging us to keep following Him, to “hang in there,” to endure patiently the struggle of living in this world, by faith, “on this side of the kingdom of heaven.” Continue reading “Endure Patiently”
Text: Matthew 13:1-23
Date: Pentecost IV + Proper 10 + 7/10/11
Up to now Jesus had been teaching the people and His disciples in a pretty straightforward manner. Today, suddenly something changed. And His disciples noticed. He got into a boat when the crowds gathered, and He sat down in the boat, the crowd standing on the beach. He began to speak. But He began telling little stories. They weren’t jokes for entertainment because there were no punch lines and they weren’t funny stories. Well, some of the details were a little strange, but nothing to make you slap your knee and double over in laughter. Just little stories. So what changed? Continue reading “Hear the Word”
Text: Matthew 11:25-30
Date: Pentecost III + Proper 9 + 7/3/11
In the first half of Matthew’s Gospel the Evangelist tells of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah promised of old, and His rapidly developing reputation. “His fame spread throughout all Syria” and he healed many sick people. “Great crowds followed him from Galilee…and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan” (Mt 4:24-25). Crowds were “astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Mt 7:28). Finally Matthew relates our Lord’s Calling of the twelve disciples or apostles. Beginning with chapter eleven, however, things begin to turn and the opposition increases especially among the religious leaders. Continue reading “My Yoke, My Rest”
