Reconciliation is the main thing

Today’s Gospel is different. There’s more—and less—than meets the eye. Let’s dive in. 

The Gospel passage I just read only shows up in Matthew—and we hear Jesus say a word that won’t show up in the Bible until Acts or the epistles. Jesus says “church.” I see you shrug… so? Isn’t church all about Jesus, and shouldn’t Jesus be all about “church?” Well, yeah, except why would Jesus be talking about church discipline when the church hasn’t been invented yet? 

I mean, the gathering of believers won’t become “the church” until after Pentecost, and by then Jesus has already been resurrected and ascended. So why is he talking about a person in “the church who might sin against us,” when there isn’t yet a church?

The Gospels that we have in the Bible were gathered up by at least four different gatherings of Christians way after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. It did not take long for those first Christians to start gathering their memories and re-telling what Jesus taught and did, and then some folks wrote it down. The Gospels record Jesus’s actions, values and teachings, and they guided early Christian communities in how to live and minister together, in this case the community that brought us Matthew’s Gospel.

So, knowing that, let’s listen again.

Jesus said: If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matt. 18.15-17)

Some people and churches use this passage as a procedure guide for how to throw someone out of their congregation. I don't think that's what's going on here. It's about keeping people in community, not exiling folks from it.

What we have here is guidance for when folks in one of these new Christian communities get mad at each other. It’s what to do when members have a beef. And, trust me, whenever two or three are gathered together, someone is going to have a beef, or get their nose bent out of joint, or get offended or offend someone. As long as the church is filled with humans, it’s going to happen. So here is some guidance as to what to do when that comes up.

But though this passage is speaking to a post-resurrection community, I’m pretty certain its roots go back to the fact that in his earthly ministry, Jesus had to deal with followers who didn’t agree or didn’t get along or who did dumb things or who were just plain wrong. So, I am thinking that when they were organizing Matthew’s church and this stuff came up, they asked themselves, “what would Jesus do?” Or, at least, “what would Jesus say?”

It may come as a shock to you, but these problems haven’t gone away. You may not know it but there is fine print in the Book of Common Prayer, where the Episcopal Church lays out a procedure for excommunication. It’s on page 409. And since the BCP is a constitutional document, that’s a pretty big deal.  But there is also rites for reconciliation, commonly called confession, that are equally good places to start.

Now in my 44 years of ministry, I’ve never ever used the “disciplinary rubric.” But I have dealt with a pinch or two in community. I have found that it’s pretty common for people to get into conflict over little stuff. It might be over something operational, like service times, or the style of the service, how we spend our money, or over who does what in the parish, or who gets to decide this or that. Maybe it’s about who wants to get married, or if we should host a 12-step group…I could go on. I don’t know, but I’ll bet you know what I mean.

But before we get caught up in the weeds the procedure, notice what Jesus doesn’t say. First, he doesn’t say, “If someone sins against you, you should sulk, pout, moan, make everyone else miserable, cut your pledge, call your lawyer and swear before God and anybody else around that you’ll have nothing to do with that no-good so-and-so until he or she crawls up to you begging your totally undeserved forgiveness.” It doesn’t grant us permission to abuse the other person, call them names, or turn them into a punching bag. It doesn’t say you should flood social media with accusations, light up the phone lines, send out a flock of e-mails, tweets, and Facebook posts, use AI to create cruel memes, whisper vile things about the offender, move to another church, or write a nastygram to the bishop. Neither Jesus nor Matthew say to do any of that.

Instead, we are taught that if you are wronged, if you are the one hurt, then you are the one who needs to take the initiative for forgiveness and reconciliation. Even if, maybe especially if, it isn’t even your fault. That’s what the Gospel says. The first step in your search for forgiveness and reconciliation comes from you—even if that doesn’t seem fair.

And it isn’t just the offended party who has to make the first move. Remember the Prodigal Son over in Luke (15:11-32)? The dad didn’t send out a search party, but when the son came to his senses and decided to come home and ask forgiveness, before the repentant son even gets to blurt out his prepared speech, the father meets him. And the father also meets the faithful son as he sulks in his room. Reconciliation is found in the act of meeting.

Reconciliation may not happen when the two parties totally agree. It may start when both sides simply decide to stop fighting about it. Not sweep it under the rug, just not allow it to define our relationship.

Sometimes we need help. Maybe the first step is to talk to a priest, maybe for counsel, maybe for confession, as a first step towards healing the breach. The twelve steps of AA talk about this: Steps 5 through 10 are all about reconciliation in dealing with our recovery and taking responsibility for the harm our addictive behavior may have caused.

Jesus’s teachings on forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoring relationships never seem fair. At least not at first. He always asks us to do more than we know we should. In fact, it is in the very next verse after today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells Peter to forgive, not 7 times but 7 times 70 times, which is Bible-speak for “always.” (Matthew 18:22).

I wish today’s passage was a magic bullet. I wish I could tell you following it will mean everything will end with a sentimental moment like at the end of a Lifetime movie. Doing this, or something like it, won’t necessarily make the other person either act better or repent. They might not even like us and they might even choose to hang on to their hurt or never change their hurtful behavior. And while we might choose to steer clear of each other for a while for our own sense of safety, none of this is why Jesus teaches us these lessons. Jesus tells us to act this way because this is how God acts toward us, and he is teaching us to imitate God every day.

When things get rough, we are invited—urged, commanded, even!—to make the first move toward reconciliation, no matter whose fault it is, no matter what we think is the fair thing to do. As with some other things Jesus says, we don’t have to like it, but we do have to do it. Or, at the very least, we need to take what Jesus says very, very seriously.

Notice that in this passage is that accountability is not a one-way road. In taking it to the church, or I must add, maybe to a therapist or a mediator instead, we might discover that the one who needs to get off his high horse… is me! Or maybe we both need to settle down. Or maybe to relax and not try to make other people behave the way we want. The community, in whatever form, may have wisdom that hasn’t occurred to the injured parties. However it happens, it requires an open heart, trust in the process, patience, and a sense of safety for everyone involved. Whatever the process, reconciliation is the goal.

In these days of “my way or the highway,” the Gospel insists that the common good—the overall health and quality of the community, the family, the group—has a strong positive claim on us. Seeking such common good takes priority over our own satisfaction, our anger, or our sense of what we deserve.

[I will never forget once watching a mother deal with two squabbling siblings. Both of them brought their case to their parent, with all the drama that kids can bring. The mother listened to both and realized that both kids were right, and that they were both wrong. So, she sat them down and said, “Listen: you have only one brother and you have only one sister. I love you both. Please work it out. Then tell me what you decide.” I was impressed. Because I might have blown the whistle and sent both kiddos to the penalty box or arbitrarily taken a side just to make the problem go away. But the family, the relationships, were more important, and putting the problem where it belonged was a good first step.]

A few weeks ago, I got called into jury duty over a civil dispute rooted in an event that took place more than seven years ago. I was the alternate juror, so I got sent home before deliberations began, but while I was listening to the evidence presented by both sides, this passage was rattling around my head.

When somebody sins against us—when there is trouble and conflict—it’s not just the two (or more) people most directly involved whose welfare is at stake. The whole community’s welfare is at stake in how things are handled.

We tend not to think this way these days. But this passage, along with the other ways Jesus dealt with his followers, suggests otherwise. He suggests that “we” comes before “me.” What an odd thought. It’s worth pondering a bit.

The passage talks about church discipline, but it is really about living in relationship and in community, whatever community that may be. And the good of the whole community is at the center of our interactions, even when—especially when—we’re in a pinch.

So, what do we do about that last part of the passage? The part about when someone refuses to listen? It says, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” It does not mean that the other person is a pariah, or that we must be estranged. No, it is a reminder that the Church’s ministry of love, reconciliation, and hope is for everyone. Even for—especially for—the people who drive us the most crazy, or the ones we have a beef with. Remember how Jesus ate and hung out with Gentiles and tax collectors? He didn’t say, “but only if you straighten up and fly right, first!” He sat down and ate. Some people didn’t get that, but the ones who up until then were on the outside looking in sure got it.

Which may be why Matthew included this bit of teaching. Tradition says Matthew was himself a tax collector. Maybe that’s why he stuck this passage in, and not the other three gospel writers? Whatever the case, reconciliation is for everyone. Especially for the people who drive us the most bonkers.

How we work out our pinches is important because they can point us toward the way of Jesus, reminds us of how we have been reconciled to God, and teaches us to become bit by bit, by the grace of God, reconcilers in a divided world.

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost: September 6, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for 15 Pentecost (Proper 18A) Sunday, September 6, 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Challenging Jesus

There is something strange going on in today’s Gospel. Did you notice? Maybe it struck you as odd but shrugged it off because it doesn’t fit with how we typically picture Jesus… but there it is as plain as day. 

Did you notice it? In today’s Gospel, Jesus the Rabbi is taken to school. 

When we read the Gospels, we see Jesus teach, yes; and he certainly heals and shows power; but there is something else, Jesus learns and he changes. What was said about Jesus as a child—that he grew in wisdom and knowledge (Luke 2:52) — still happens for the adult Jesus. Jesus not only teaches, but he also learns. He grows in wisdom. 

Wisdom is a constant theme of many movies, TV shows, literature, and even graphic novels, although it rarely described as such. 

Remember The Matrix? Neo undertakes a journey to discover his role in overthrowing the Matrix starting with his first meeting with the Oracle, a grandmotherly figure peering into an oven baking cookies, in an apartment where the students hang out as if they are doing their homework after school.

In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker learns the ways of the Force under the tutelage of the ancient Jedi master Yoda, who seems at first to be an eccentric, slightly annoying little creature but turns out to be steeped in ancient wisdom.

The film The Way, director Emilio Estevez cast his father, Martin Sheen, as a man named Tom who walks away the Camino de Santiago, “The Way of St. James.” through northern Spain. Along the way he encounters all kinds of people and discovers the difference between the “life we live and the life we choose.”

And we mustn’t forget Spider-Man, who is always learning that with “great power comes great responsibility.”

In the Hebrew Scriptures, Wisdom is the personification of God’s knowledge, creativity and transforming love. Rather than focusing on the power of God that sent plagues to Pharaoh, parted the Red Sea and those other miraculous special effects, Wisdom is how we meet God through other ways of knowing. It is more intuitive, depends on our senses, and comes out of reflection, artistic and musical expression. 

Wisdom is where heart, emotion, and thinking meet. 

That’s why, when the earliest Christians looked for ways to describe their encounter with Jesus, it was the Wisdom literature that spoke to them the most. Their experience of Jesus was not just of a person who did powerful things, but their encounter was one that opened their eyes, their hearts, and their minds to the very presence and person of God. In Jesus, they experienced both the knowledge of God and the welcome of God. 

Wisdom is at the heart of Jesus’ encounter with the foreign woman in today’s Gospel. 

Jesus and his disciples travelled through a Gentile region near Galilee when a woman from those parts approaches Jesus and asks him to heal her daughter. At first, he flat-out ignored her. He wouldn’t even acknowledge the request.

She pleads and shouts after Jesus and his disciples. 

Finally, when he turns to her and speaks the conventional wisdom concerning the Messiah, he says that the Messiah is only for the Jews, not for Gentiles like her. He brushes her off saying that “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Did you hear that? He called her a dog!

Nevertheless, with courage and desperation, she persisted. “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Finally, the picture begins to make sense. Jesus commends her faith and affirms her as a beloved child of God. “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And, the Gospel tells us, her daughter was healed instantly. 

I don’t know about you, but this story startles me because it does not fit with my soft, cuddly picture of Jesus, who here acts in an arbitrary, harsh, and unloving manner—until she changes his mind!

For centuries, preachers have struggled to make sense of it—and to explain away Jesus’ rudeness. We can’t imagine that the guy who would flip over tables in the Temples or go toe to toe with the religious leaders of his day could be… sarcastic! And the lengths they’ll go to smooth it over is incredible. Some say that the Greek word Jesus used for “dog” really means “puppy.” (Uhm, no. It doesn’t.) Some say that he was critiquing the cultural norms of the day… really? By being callous and unkind? Maybe Jesus was using this encounter to test and stretch his disciples’ understanding of God? Hmm… we’ll see.

Here’s an idea. Maybe the Gentile woman taught Jesus… that in saying that God’s covenant extended to everyone regardless of their status was bigger than they imagined. And maybe the early Church remembered their encounter because they were learning that lesson for themselves! The lesson? That God’s reign is bigger than tradition or culture or “the way we’ve always done things.” 

Remember, Jesus grew up in the first century and that he lived his early life only among Palestinian Jews. He spent almost all of his ministry among the Jews – the children of Israel. His training was Jewish. 

His bible was the Hebrew Scriptures. He lived in a social and religious culture that saw Gentiles as “other,” often as unclean, or taboo.

Was Jesus was stuck in such a mindset or was he deliberately pushing the envelope? I think he was pushing the edges of faith outward, taking it to new territory literally and figuratively. I think he chose to bring Good News to everyone. After all, he did deliberately go to a place where Gentiles lived when he encountered this persistent woman. What did he expect? Either this encounter caused him to re-think commonly accepted views about Gentiles… or it was his chance to prove a point!

Whatever happened between Jesus and the woman, he clearly went from saying “no!” to complimenting the woman for her faith and answering her prayer. I think Matthew’s Church remembered this encounter precisely because those early Jewish Christians were starting to see their Gentile Christian companions in a new light! In short, in this story, Jesus is showing an early Church the importance of learning something new.

Maybe Jesus’ mind changed or he was breaking new ground, but the real news is that the early Church—the Church of Matthew’s Gospel—was changing! They went out from Palestine into the wider world of the Roman Empire; and they were leaving the Synagogues of the Diaspora and going into new communities, and discovering over and over again that Jesus’ teaching, the Holy Spirit, and the grace of God was changing people in unexpected places and in unexpected ways. Over and over again, they were encountering people about whom they would say “…Great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And in that they found healing!

In this transformation we see the challenges and inner struggles faced by every succeeding generation of Christians. Their transforming, God-provoked re-imagining of a long-held, commonly known practices mirror and inform the struggles we experience ourselves in a troubled culture during this excruciatingly troublesome year.

Amid our struggles for inclusion, our long history of racial inequality, the ways we understand Jesus, the Gospel, we will meet and encounter people who challenge our long-held, often cherished notions of faith.

Last Friday, August 14, two different branches of the Church recognized in their calendars the sacrificial witness of two very different saints on the very same day. The Roman Catholic Church remembered the witness Saint Maximilian Kolbe and the Episcopal Church remembered Jonathan Myrick Daniels. 

Maximilian Kolbe was a Franciscan priest in Poland who overcame his early, learned anti-Semitism and after the Nazis invaded his country sheltered Jews fleeting the Holocaust. For this he was arrested and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In 1941, when a prisoner escaped, ten other prisoners were rounded up to be executed. Kolbe stepped in and volunteered to die instead of one of the others, and so the Nazis executed him on August 14, 1941. He was canonized in 1982.

Jonathan Daniels was a seminarian who grew up in Keene, New Hampshire and attended the Virginia Military Institute and eventually the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Mass. In 1965, he answered the call to go to the South and help register disenfranchised black citizens to vote. And on 

August 14th, he was jailed in Haynesville, AL, along with six other Freedom Riders including a Catholic priest. After six days, on August 20th, they were released but while waiting for a ride, they were confronted by a deputy sheriff who aimed his shotgun at a young girl named Ruby Sales. Daniels pushed her aside and was killed in the blast. The priest was wounded trying to protect the others. Ruby Sales continues to be an activist for civil rights and justice to this day.

Sales was so traumatized by Daniels' murder that she nearly lost the ability to speak for the next seven months. Despite death threats made to her and her family, Sales testified at Tom Coleman's trial, where he was acquitted by a jury of 12 white men and said in a CBS television interview a year after the killings that he had no regrets, declaring, "I would shoot them both tomorrow."

Sales herself would later attend the same seminary as Daniels and works today as an advocate for civil rights and social justice.

I don’t know if I would ever have the courage of any of these saints, but their example inspires us to seek faith where it will be found, to speak out against racism, tyranny, and bigotry in all its forms. The story of the Gentile woman challenging Jesus is the story of the Church—of us—being challenged every day to see the image of God in the faces of all the people God gives us every day and reminds us of our baptismal promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons and to love our neighbor as ourselves, whoever and wherever they may be.

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The 12th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15A

This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost: August 16, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for 11 Pentecost (Proper 15A) Sunday, August 16, 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Meeting Jesus in the Storm

Here’s a riddle for you: Why did the disciples cross the lake? To get to the other side!

In Jesus’ day, the Sea of Galilee was a stormy place to sail anyway. It is actually a lot like sailing across the Great Lakes of North America. Water behaves differently on big inland fresh water lakes than they do on open oceans. The least bit of wind can create quite a tempest.  So, when the disciples were going across the water it was very rough going very quickly and they were stuck in the middle all night long, trying to make headway against a storm with an itty-bitty sail and oars.

The early church remembered Jesus’ miracle because they could identify with it immediately. Not because they were sailors or fishermen, but because the new, young church was like, to quote the prayer of St. Brendanthe Navigator, being in a very small boat on a big sea in the middle of a storm.  So, in the Gospel of Matthew (as in Mark, whose outline Matthew follows) going across the water means “going to the other side” from a safe familiar place to a new, foreign or unknown place of mission—by definition a risky and stormy trip.

Matthew is telling the story of what Jesus because the young church knew that they were sailing through a storm.

Around here, we know about storms. Not far from my house, there’s a sign on the road to the airport that is on a pole 15 feet high. It says that the storm surge from the bay will reach or cover that sign.

Many of us in these parts listen closely to the weather in hurricane season, put together a storm box in case the power goes out, know our flood zone by heart, and keep “go bags” at the ready in case we are told to bug out.  Mostly, we deal with them as best we can. We try to keep the water out and, if necessary, try to stay afloat, even if we don’t always make headway.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus walks across the water and through a storm to meet the disciples. Some paintings I have seen of this shows a serene Jesus walking across the water as peacefully as a stroll down a lane on a summer day. But I think that when Jesus walked across the water, he got very wet, and he probably looked like three miles of bad road when he finally did climb into the boat. The storm was all around him and the wind was still wailing. The powers of the storm and the wind and sea tried to overwhelm him but could not. He walked through the storm, not immune from its effects and fully immersed in its reality. The miracle is that he was not overpowered by it.

He would do that again on the cross. He would face everything evil and sin has to offer, including death. He would die a true and real death on the cross, just as he faced a true and real storm on the sea that day, and he would rise from the dead. In walking across the lake in the storm, he demonstrates not only his power but he also that the storm is real. The storm does not deter or stop him.

As he comes to the boat, the disciples see him and are afraid because they don’t know what to make of what they are seeing. But Jesus says to them the same thing he said on that third day in the upper room on that very first Easter: “Do not be afraid!”

Jesus comes and he brings peace, but the storm doesn’t stop. Not right away.  Which leads us to the rest of the story:

Oh, Peter. Poor old Peter!

We tend to give Peter short shrift because Jesus’ words to him after he is rescued sound to our ears like a rebuke: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” We hear the words “little faith” and think “no faith.” We humans are very binary, very “1” or “0” about almost everything. We expect ourselves to either have the kind of faith to move mountains and accomplish the impossible, or to have no faith at all. The truth is that we are all somewhere in between. We are all people of “little faith.”  Martin Luther said that we are simultaneously saints and sinners.  Which is why we identify so much with Peter, because he is a lot like us: a lion of the faith with a heart of gold who is at the very same dense, afraid, and reactive.

The disciples are not spiritual klutzes who can’t shoot straight. They are faithful people on a difficult journey, and Jesus meets them in the midst of storms.

We forget that Peter did in fact do what Jesus did. He walked on the water! Until, well, he didn't. Still, I'll bet he walked farther than I would have, that's for sure!

St. Brendan the Navigator

Being a Christian is all about imitating Christ, and Peter wants to be like Jesus and do what Jesus does. He asks Jesus to call him and he answers the call. Only the storm is real, and as Peter moves into the storm, he says “uh-oh!” But even as he is sinking, even as he feels overwhelmed, Peter still calls out to Jesus. And Jesus helps Peter and brings him back to the boat. Safely aboard the boat, still beset by the storm, Jesus stills the storm. 

How many of us have done exactly the same thing? Who among us has never bitten off more than that we can chew spiritually?

Every summer for about thirty years, I go to Icon Camp, where I gather with other artists, most of us amateurs to paint an icon—an ancient Eastern Christian form of religious art found in Russian and Greek churches. We take a week to gather at a monastery where we paint, pray, eat, kibbitz, and then paint some more. 

One year, we worked on an icon based on today’s Gospel. Part of the work that week was to do a study of Jesus’ hand grasping Peter’s wrist in the midst of a maelstrom. That study is the heart and focus of the larger icon. That study was not just a lesson on artistic technique but also a reminder of the three miracles described in today’s Gospel: Jesus walks on the water. Peter walks on the water. Jesus stills the storm.  But first, before all that everyone (Peter and Jesus included) gets wet.

And no matter what, Jesus calls us, watches us, and rescues us.

Every Christian will experience storms. Baptism does not make us waterproof! We will all get wet! In fact, to do the ministries we are called to do, we will be sent into some pretty thick weather! But Jesus comes to us and is with us in the storm. We cannot still the storm or walk on water alone. But Jesus has power over the storm. The storm will not defeat Jesus. And we people of little faith, we are at once saints and sinners, need only reach out to Jesus and say “Lord, save me!” and he is there in the midst of the storm to rescue us. 

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost: August 9, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for 10 Pentecost (Proper 14A) Sunday, August 9, 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Jesus' manna moment

So, I have a question: was Jesus a foodie? Or did he just like dinner parties and big bashes?

I ask this because so much of Jesus’ teaching and even some of his miracles happen while there’s food around. Think about it: after the opening poem in John’s Gospel, the first thing we see is Jesus at a party turning water into wine. During another dinner with a bunch of religious leaders and lay people, a women crashed the party and washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair? Remember how, during his sojourn in the desert, Jesus is tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread—but, as hungry as he was, he doesn’t do it? On the other hand, when Jesus had dinner with Matthew and his tax collector friends, some of the local clerics and lay leaders grumbled about his gluttony? And, of course, there’s the last supper in the upper room where he washed his disciples’ feet and then celebrated a Passover meal with them! Remember how the risen Jesus appeared after the resurrection to the disciples as a group, around that very same dinner table, and how another time, the Risen Jesus cooks his fisherman-followers breakfast over a campfire?  After walking along the Emmaus road with a pair of sad, grief-stricken followers of Jesus, they didn’t recognize his risen self until he breaks bread with them in their own upper room.

So many encounters over so many meals! I guess we shouldn’t be all that surprised that Jesus would choose to feed a big crowd of people who came to hear him with baskets and baskets of food that he blessed and multiplied out of a kid’s bag lunch.

The miraculous feeding with the loaves and fishes must have on made an impression on Jesus’ followers, because it shows up six times in all four Gospels. Six! All the Gospels have at least one account of this, but Matthew and Mark have two… when Jesus fed 5000 of mainly Jewish listeners, and 4000 mostly Gentile folks in a place called the Decapolis. 

This repetition is a very big deal!

The people in the four early church communities that gave us the Gospels remembered these miracles not just because they were spectacular, but precisely because they were repeated. My hunch is that miraculously feeding lots of people from a small grocery bag was a regular, or at least not infrequent, part of Jesus’ preaching and proclamation. It sits right up there with the various healings and his way of teaching.  Jesus demonstrates the abundance of God’s love, grace, and care for all of us in that is once practical and spectacular: by feeding hungry people.

There feedings were Jesus’ manna moments. Not just once, as with the miracle of the manna in the wilderness in Exodus, but time and time again. And just like Moses’ miracle in the desert, Jesus feeds the people both freely and abundantly every single time.

Today, we associate the Eucharist with the very stylized but spare meal that we do in church every week. But in the early church, the line between a festive dinner, often called an Agape meal, and the Eucharist was almost indistinguishable. Sometimes early Christians got so carried away with the festivity, that the parties could get out of hand. At one point, the Apostle Paul had to remind the Christians in Corinth not only to settle down, but also that the folks who could afford catered meals had to look out for (and share with) people who could only bring a small casserole or loaf of bread.

Eventually, the Eucharist got separated from the banquets, so that today we celebrate, in a very ritualized way, the infinite grace imparted using only a tiny piece of blessed wafer and a sip of sacramental wine. After that, we proceed to the parish hall for coffee, iced tea, and yummy treats, or sometimes to a wonderful meal.

I will never forget how my first parish had a community meal (aka, a soup kitchen) six days a week, and that every week a Eucharist preceded it every Wednesdays at noon. That simple celebration was often attended by the same people who both served the food and those who shared the meal. For a lot of these folks, that meal was their only meal of the day, and that service was their only church. And for them, the two meals, both the one in church and the one in the dining room, were deeply linked. They couldn’t have one without the other.

Today’s Gospel reminds us that the grace imparted in the Eucharistic meal and the grace seen in the feeding of the five thousand are both practical expressions of God's never-ending, generous love.

But more than that, Matthew’s church remembered how Jesus fed the 5000 and put in their Gospel story an act of practical reminiscence. Because when Jesus took this small offering of food, blessed and broke the bread, and gave it to his disciples to hand out, he demonstrated what all of Jesus’ images of small seeds growing into big shrubs, yeast rising into loaves, someone finding treasure hidden in a field and buying it, a woman turning her house upside down to find a lost coin was really all about. The feeding of the five thousand was for them, and us, a living demonstration of those little kingdom parables.  Jesus showed us that the kingdom of God is all around us all the time, and that God's grace abounds not only in sanctuaries but in fields, on hill tops, and in the homes, farms, and shops of ordinary people. The reign of God is found in lunch boxes as well as in temples. Jesus shows us we are all called to love, care for, and feed one another, and that in God’s economy the smallest acts of kindness and compassion makes all the difference in the world.

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost: August 2, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for 10 Pentecost (Proper 13A) Sunday, August 2 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

So, what now?

So, what now?

The weekend isn’t over yet, but we’ve had the fireworks, the parades, the speeches, and while we might have a cookout or two left, the 250^th Independence Day of the United States is in the books. So, now what? Where do we go from here?

Or, as my favorite TV president, Jed Bartlett, would say, “What’s next?”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve sensed a strange ambivalence about this year’s celebration. It’s been fifty years, but I remember the exuberance of the bicentennial in 1976 and the run-up to it. Yeah, it was the seventies—big hair, big cars, disco, and punk rock—but the buildup for the party was well underway when I finished high school in 1975 and all through my freshman year, until the big do the following summer. Yeah, I know about hindsight and all that, but as I was working a summer job cutting grass, moving chairs, and mopping floors at my home parish, all around that inner-city church there was celebration. (And hype! Don’t forget all the bicentennial themed marketing!) Today? Sure, there have been some America 250 or Freedom 250 banners (indicating the two competing committees running the show), but last night’s fireworks were more or less on the same schedule as last year’s… and I just can’t shake the feeling that there just wasn’t as much energy around this as before. As a Washington native, I am astounded at how few people showed up for the what ought to have been the party of the decade. There have, of course, been at least two exceptions (three, if you count Tayor Swift’s wedding to Travis Kelce on Friday): we’ve been watching the world cup taking place around the US which, as I said last week, has been great fun and I’ve really enjoyed seeing the geeky and enthusiastic crowds that showed up trackside or at train yards to watch the Union Pacific 4014 Big Boy steam locomotive as it made its way across the country from California to Philadelphia.

Maybe “250” doesn’t have the same panache as “200.” But I wonder, do we really know what we’re celebrating? It could be that in ’76 we were, in addition to celebrating our nation birthday, we were also blowing off steam after a really difficult period of war, political upheaval, civil unrest, and scandal. It seems to me that, as a nation, we are experiencing today the same kind of spiritual mindset that caused Paul to write to the Christians in Rome two millennia ago.

Paul wrote to Christians in Rome with breath-taking honesty, about his spiritual life. “I do not understand my own actions,” he says. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” It’s a basic human truth, built into all of us.

I’m not speaking individually, as Paul did, but about us as a nation. We know that we need to come together, to bridge our differences, build on our variety and our capacity for good; but inevitably, we divide into camps, zero in disagreements, and anxiously blame other people for our problems. We can’t talk honestly about our history, because too often when we do, we either ignore what makes us uncomfortable, re-write what went wrong, so that instead of learning from our past  we anxiously takes sides and pick fights. As Paul said, we want the best, but we lean into the worst.

It is hard to follow Jesus faithfully amidst all the noise and bickering. So how does God respond? Well, for one thing we are given a gospel that calls us to hear, listen and rest.

Think about how noisy today’s Gospel is. It’s full of kids playing in the street with little or no supervision, calling out to each other, quarreling, pretending, singing songs, and playing toy flutes.

Jesus says that this is exactly how we are. “…To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’” (Matthew 11:16-17).

Near my house is a lovely playground in a beautiful, forested county park. And when school is out, it is wild. Kids from the very small to middle schoolers are running, jumping, climbing, and generally making a racket. And, if any of you have ever worked with or raised children, you know that sometimes that exuberance can also lead to chaos, even conflict.

In the Gospel, Jesus talks about children in the town market who call out “let’s play wedding!” or “let’s play funeral” to companions who will not join them. We’ve seen this, when one kid comes to another and asks, “wanna play?” and the other kid says “Nah!” and runs away.  Jesus said the generation that rejected both John and Jesus were the same way.

We don’t know how to ‘play nice.’ People said John the Baptist’s way was too hard, but they also said Jesus’ way seemed too easy. (Matthew 11:18-19). But both John and Jesus announced the Reign of God, but is it a wedding or a funeral? Should we feast or fast? Do we rejoice or repent? Should we follow John’s way or Jesus’? Well, the answer to that question is “yes!” Both! We have been invited in our faith and baptism to come play. We have been set free from what holds us back.

So, what now? How do we use the freedom that God has given us?

For the last 250 years, we Americans have debated what freedom means. I remember growing up, my elementary school has framed prints of four Norman Rockwell paintings called “The Four Freedoms,” based on Franklin Roosevelt’s January 1941, State of the Union message: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear.

The Scripture readings appointed for today suggest that there is a still deeper question. Not simply, “Are we free?” but “What are we doing with our freedom?”

Political freedom and spiritual freedom are not the same thing. The Apostle Paul understood that. In his letter to the Romans, Paul says something startling: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” I suspect most of us know exactly what he means!

We know the experience of wanting to do one thing and finding ourselves doing another. We want to be patient, but we lose our temper. We want to be generous, but we cling tightly to what we have. We want to forgive, but we carry old grievances. We want to love our neighbors, but fear and prejudice get in the way.

And what is true of individuals can also become true of nations. We can proclaim liberty while tolerating (or even propagating) injustice. We can celebrate equality while excluding some of our neighbors. We can speak of human dignity while turning away from those who are suffering or most vulnerable. We can honor freedom while failing to ask whether everyone truly has the opportunity to flourish.

The founders of this country understood that free societies require “virtuous” citizens. That’s why the government stays out of religion by giving belief space to breathe. It’s also why we have public education and libraries. Paul goes even deeper, though. The problem is not simply that people sometimes make bad decisions. The problem is that there are forces within us that distort us from becoming the people God created us to be.

The Christian faith has never allowed us to imagine that freedom alone is enough. Freedom is not an end in itself. The question before us is always: freedom for what?

That’s when Jesus enters the conversation when he says in today’s Gospel, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

Notice what Jesus does not say. He does not promise victory, nor power, nor wealth. He doesn’t preach national greatness or that our side will win. He promises rest.

I’ve always been intrigued that in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson lists the things people pursue, as God-given, inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the “pursuit of happiness.” I suspect that Jesus’ notion of “rest” and Jefferson’s idea of “happiness” might be related.  Look at Jesus’s vision of a healthy society. Instead of wealth, power, military strength, economic growth, influence, Jesus asks: Are the weary finding rest? Are burdens being lifted? Are people being treated with gentleness? And then Jesus invites us to “Learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart.” What’s fascinating to me that when Jefferson, a Unitarian-leaning Anglican, took scissors to the Bible, cutting out all the miracles and stuff he thought unscientific, the part of Jesus’ teaching that we read today is one of the things he left in! Jefferson apparently like Jesus’ ethics more his healings.

Miracles or not, Jesus’ vision of God’s reign presents a different vision of life than our competitive dog-eat-dog, go-go-go way of living that we think of is normal. And it is a very startling vision by comparison. We don’t typically celebrate gentleness and humility in public life. We admire strength. We admire confidence. We admire winning. But Jesus, who said that the truth will set us free, points us toward humility, not coercion; carrying burdens, instead of crushing enemies, in short, Jesus teaches an ethic of love.

That, I believe, is what Christian freedom ultimately means: not merely freedom from something, but freedom for something: freedom for love, freedom for compassion, freedom for justice, freedom for mercy, freedom for building communities where every person knows they belong, freedom for participating in God’s work of healing the world.

So, on day 1 of America’s 251^st year, where do we go from here? What shall we do with this hard won, still unfolding, freedom.

Shall we use it only for ourselves? Or shall we use it to build a society where burdens are lighter, where the weary find rest, where the vulnerable are protected, where strangers are welcomed, where the hungry are fed, the imprisoned visited, and the homeless are sheltered? Shall we exercise power with humility, and live so that love of neighbor is more than a slogan?

The Gospel never asks us to reject our love of country, but it does ask us to measure every nation—including our own— and the actions of our citizens and leaders against the character of Jesus Christ.

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe wrote this for year's Independence Day,

Churches like ours, protected by the First Amendment and practiced in galvanizing people of goodwill, may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting this administration’s overreach and recklessness. To do so faithfully, we must see beyond the limitations of our tradition and respond not in partisan terms, but as Christians who seek to practice our faith fully in a free and fair democracy. 

We did not seek this predicament, but God calls us to place the most vulnerable and marginalized at the center of our common life, and we must follow that command regardless of the dictates of any political party or earthly power. We are now being faced with a series of choices between the demands of the federal government and the teachings of Jesus, and that is no choice at all. 

This is not the same kind of patriotism that has guided our church since its founding in 1785, but this July Fourth, it may be the most faithful service we can render — both to the country we love and the God we serve.

Jesus tells us that real, lasting power comes through service and that greatness is found in our mercy. We are invited to learn from Jesus; who is “gentle and humble in heart.” And having begun to learn from Jesus, while doing his work of love, and praying every day that God will give us the wisdom to use our freedom well, we may, with God’s help, become more and more the kind of people, and the kind of nation, that more closely reflects the gentle and humble heart of Christ himself.

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 9A), July 5, 2026, at St. John's Church, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (9A).

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Hospitality is the Heart

“Welcome!”

Everywhere we go, someone or some place is welcoming us. We put out welcome mats. Some stores have greeters whose only job is to say "welcome" to customers as they enter. Go into a restaurant and you might hear, "Good evening and welcome! Table for two?" Just up the road here on Belcher Road one sign welcomes us to Largo if you’re going south, and across the street another sign welcomes us to Clearwater as we drive north. The ring master at the circus starts the show wearing his top-hat and tails, saying "Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and girls! Welcome to the greatest show on earth!"

Welcome is a lovely word with a long history, compounding two familiar words, "well" and "come," though with slightly different meanings than what we use today. The root of "well" could mean something like "wellness" or "well-being," or can be a kind of blessing to “be well.”  "Come" is from an Old English word for one who arrives—no surprises there. So, in its earliest sense, "welcome" is an invitation and a blessing to be received into the goodness of this new place, where one has just arrived.t

Making one feel welcome is not as simple as offering a word. Preparing to welcome someone is an art that takes thought, intention, and discipline. Some practitioners of hospitality are always ready with the accoutrements of welcome: an appropriate beverage, the right food at the right time, a comfortable chair, a few thoughtful and respectful questions of the guest. An effective welcome courteously wipes away the strangeness or awkwardness of a new setting and makes one feel at home.

And during the past few weeks we've seen the power of welcome in cities all over the US have welcomed soccer, er... football!... teams from all over the globe to the world cup. I've loved the images of Japanese players enjoying barbeque in Kansas City, the Scottish Tartan Army in Boston, and we can thank the Dutch in Houston for planting in us that joyous earworm as we dance to the left and to the right. It was such a good time, that the Scots even wrote a public thank you note to the people of Boston (after drinking all their beer)!  

For Jews and Christians, hospitality has always been at the heart of who we are. The call to welcome the stranger is anchored in the Torah and was a part of the measure of the Hebrew community's faithfulness to God. Jesus both received hospitality and taught his followers to be hospitable.

Welcome is built into the geography and culture of the Holy Land. We are used to our planes, trains, and automobiles, but for most of human history people travelled at a walking pace. And if you were going from Europe or Asia Minor to Persia, the Nile Delta or Africa, or back, it meant that one went on foot… or maybe by horse or camel… through a narrow strip of land with the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the desert or mountains to the east. One of the reasons that Israel and Palestine is “holy land” is that it exists on a vital land bridge between three continents. Geography is one reason that so many ancient empires coveted that territory so much. And because the whole world seemed to walk through, hospitality was baked into Hebrew culture from the start.

Of course, travelers on this land bridge were rarely family. These were folks unknown to the community. They were aliens and foreigners, people who ate different foods, wore different clothes, spoke different languages, worshipped different gods. Opening one's home could be risky but survival depended upon hospitality. Today we'd describe such a thing as out and out foolishness. So, while our homes might have welcome mats, we also have locks, doorbells, peep holes, and even cameras that broadcast to our phones when a person is at the door. It’s been true since the dawn of time, that’s why there were also walled cities in ancient times. We humans might need hospitality, but we also fear the stranger.

In biblical times, hospitality was central to Hebrew identity. Remember the story of Jesus born in a manger? Or Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan? The risk did not define the people; their hospitality did, because hospitality is central to the character of God.

Early Christian communities were also welcoming and hospitable. Paul reminded the Romans to offer hospitality to the alien, and in the Letter to the Hebrews we are reminded to show hospitality to everyone because, you never know, you might be entertaining angels in disguise. In Acts, the early deacons practiced hospitality throughout the community, bringing welcome to those in need. And in Matthew's community, hospitality is a measure of the faithfulness of the people. Welcoming prophets, righteous ones, and disciples (whom Matthew’s Gospel called "little ones") was a disciplined practice of the young churches.

In her book Amazing Grace, Kathleen Norris tells the story of a nun who, although she had Alzheimer's, still asks to be rolled in her wheelchair to the door of her nursing home so she can greet every guest. Said one nun of her sister in ministry, "She is no longer certain what she is welcoming people to...but hospitality is so deeply ingrained in her that it has become her whole life.” Norris writes that "in monastic spirituality…, only people who are basically at home, and at home in themselves, can offer hospitality...hospitality has a way of breaking through our insularity.”

Welcome as a practice of hospitality doesn't just happen. It must be taught. But such lessons don't come easily in our society. Some years ago, when I was serving as a hospital chaplain, I used to go around filling in for small churches. In nearly every case, the congregations were warm and welcoming… and also set in their ways. And occasionally, as sometimes happens when you see the same folks week after week, a congregation might get a little rusty in the art of welcome.

I remember going to one church for the first time and had no idea how they did things. I chatted with the organist and a lector, but after I put on my vestments, I found myself all alone in the sacristy with no idea how to find the sanctuary or where to procession formed. I opened a door, thinking it led into the church, and found myself outside and before I could turn around, the door closed. Locked. So, I went to the front of the church, thinking at least I could go in the front door, and, wouldn’t you know, the big red doors facing the busy main street under an “Episcopal Church Welcomes You” sign, was also locked. I could hear the opening hymn start up, and the tower bell rang over my head, but I couldn’t get in! It looked like it was going to be a very short service that Sunday! I knocked as loudly as I could… pounded on the door, actually. Finally, a fellow in choir robes opened the door, looked at me as if I had grown two heads, and asked, “What are you doing there? We never use this door!”

Hospitality isn’t just about being nice, and it’s more than putting out a welcome mat. It's a matter of attention: attention to those barriers, impediments, biases, and obstacles that we construct through habit and tradition, that can be barriers to the good news, a deterrent to participation in the church, and a distraction from abundant life in Jesus Christ.

The Greek word for stranger—xenos – is also the word for guest and host. In this age of contemporary tribal warfare, of Balkanization and gated communities, most of us are aware of the term "xenophobia," or fear of the stranger. This fear leads to nationalism, racism, and even genocide.

But, on the other hand, Jesus' call to welcome another is a call to “xenophilia,” or love of stranger. With xenophilia, the stranger is also the guest, and in the Gospel of Luke, welcoming the stranger is how the risen Christ is made known after that long walk on the Emmaus road, becoming both the guest and the host.

Hospitality is a skill that is taught. It all begins with practice, by simply doing hospitable things. The best hosts simply bring who we are, what we have, where we are, as graciously as we are able. Sure, that might mean putting out the best china, silver, and linens; at other times it may simply be a cup of coffee in a disposable cup and a cookie. In every case, it is the gesture itself, the practice, that shapes the character of the encounter, and the participants, into a story of grace that is the essence of the moment.

Often, we learn such lessons by experiencing just how involved hospitality can be. A coarse blurt of honest feelings might let off some steam in the moment, but it rarely serves the target of our discharge, or ourselves for that matter. But a gracious welcome can transform not only a moment but a life. A thoughtful pause, a quiet nod, an encouraging, courteous word of welcome can make Christ's presence known and perhaps even help one hear God's call.

I learned this a long time ago when I was a brand-new deacon and priest. I served a church in a small city that had seen it’s mills and factory close and leave town, the parish ran a six-day a week noonday meal that was free to everyone, as well as a food pantry, a fund for emergency fuel-oil, and hosted several twelve-step groups. The parish also served a small group of special needs adults who used to be housed in big institutions, but who now lived in nearby apartments or group homes.

One of those folks was a guy named Billy, who was always the first one to arrive at church, waiting for whoever would unlock the doors on Sunday mornings. Billy had no filters and no ‘off’ switch. The previous Rector taught him to light and put out the candles for the early Sunday Eucharist, and to serve the altar, which he did very faithfully. But this also meant that every Sunday the early service was a kind of liturgical improv because one never knew exactly when an item would come next, or what it might be. Remember that lack of an “off” switch? From the moment he came to the time he went home, he talked, hummed, sang, or would parrot whatever car or motorcycle drove past the church during the service. It was simply how Billy was wired.

And I have to say, it drove me bananas! Raised, as I was, in a household where church meant a certain decorum, I was not prepared for this! But my supervisor, a retired Cathedral Canon (whom Billy called ‘Kenny’), never seemed to mind. He took every curve ball in stride.

One day, after a particularly wild Sunday that severely tested my stamina, I went to my mentor and asked him how he did it. How could he handle Billy so calmly and graciously, while I was so wired from not knowing what would come next.

After a moment’s thought, the Canon said, “Well, Andrew, he’s Jesus.” At first, I felt about two inches tall, but that wisdom changed everything for me. It was from there that I began to develop what has become a regular prayer for me:

“Grant us the grace, O God, to see the face of Jesus in the people you bring to us; and also give us grace to be the face of Jesus to those who seek Him.”

Welcoming another requires attention to the other. The welcome Jesus invites us to share is an act of grace, vulnerability, and love because we must set aside our discomfort around difference or strangeness and choose instead to accept the grace of meeting another of God’s children as they are. And in that meeting, we are reminded what Jesus taught us: that in giving even a cup of cold water to one of Jesus’ little ones is also caring for Jesus himself.

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 8A), June 28, 2026, at St. John's Church, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (8A).

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Starting at the edges

Nothing really winds me up like buzzwords. People throw around jargon like candy attempting to sound smart without saying very much. Then these words end up in popular usage in places like television, in commercials, in seminars, and in speeches… and it really gets me going… people saying things without really much meaning. It happens in business, in church, and in politics. And when I hear buzzwords, I just want to sigh.

One of today’s most popular buzzwords is “disruption.” They tell us that their product, widget, or process is “disrupting the widget industry… and you should go out and buy it!” Well, friends, disruption is not all it’s cracked up to be… and usually when people are saying it, they don’t really mean it. They say “disruption,” but they mean “more of the same… but all shiny and looking new!” Like a brand-new car body resting on a chassis designed in the 1930’s.

The fact is that real disruption, real innovation, real invention is usually pretty upsetting. That’s why people resist it so much. Not long ago, the idea of flight was reserved for birds, bugs, and balloonists. The funny thing is that after two centuries of invention and innovation, with all the great gadgets we take for granted, very little has changed about how people are. Humans are very inventive in applying all our new gadgets into the ways we’ve always done things.

Change, real change, is hard! It requires a shift in perspective, in habit, in our thinking, and attitude. That’s why it requires not just discipline but grace, vision of what we want to be and the humility to start over… and hearts that listens for God.

Jesus’ first century image for “disruption” was what happens when one tries to put new wine into old wineskins. You know what you get? You end up with a thirsty person standing in a puddle of wine holding a broken, leaky wine sack. No, Jesus said, if you are going to do something new, it needs to be all new!

God is doing something new, Jesus says, and it will neither look, feel, nor operate the same way as how things have operated before. In todays’ Gospel we have three examples: Jesus calls Matthew the tax-collector to follow him; he heals a woman who has experienced a constant hemorrhage her years, and along the way he raises a dead little girl back to life. 

The Gospel puts these three stories together to answer a simple question: what will following the call of God be like? What is God doing in Jesus? In Christ, God is bringing healing, wholeness, and reconciliation to all God’s people.

But God does it differently that how we expect. Our old habits, our old ways of seeing, our notions of good order and how things “have to be” are going to turned upside down. This new wine will not fit in the old containers. The containers can’t take it!

Watch what Jesus is doing and see how he is at once making new wine and creating new wine containers in the lives of the people he meets.

When he walks up to Matthew in his tax-collecting booth, he is meeting a man who, contrary to popular perception, was probably not terribly well-off nor prosperous, but neither was he well-loved nor respected by anyone, including the employer who hired him. You see, in Jesus’ day, the Roman government hired locals to collect the taxes. The contractors would then hire the 1^st century equivalent of day laborers to do the actual collecting. They’d keep a shekel or too, the contractor would keep his cut and pass along the rest to the local Roman official, who probably kept his cut, and so on and so on.

Jesus found Matthew in a booth, where he probably collected tolls or levies from the merchants and travelers using the Roman road. There was no Sun Pass, there was Matthew.

Matthew was probably pushed around by his boss who had the contract, who wanted him to gather as much as possible. The people paying the levy were probably not so nice to him. And when he went home, his Jewish neighbors probably wanted nothing to do with him. Which is why we find Matthew hanging out other folks who, like himself, made their living on the wrong side of the tracks: thieves, extortionists, prostitutes, and other Jews in the employ of Rome, not to mention those people who made their living doing often important but unsavory work that respectable people didn’t talk about.

So when Jesus calls Matthew, he calls one of the most unlikely, least respected persons imaginable to be one of his followers. And he doesn’t even tell him to clean up his act first! No lecture, no harangue, just an invitation to follow.

What a strange thing to do! Why does Jesus risk his own good name and the reputation of a fledgling ministry on the likes of this reprobate … this quisling… Matthew? Jesus is about to show us why in the two healings that follow.

While Jesus is eating and drinking with Matthew and his notorious friends, word comes that a little girl, the daughter of a leader in the local synagogue, has died. He begs Jesus to lay his hand on the girl so that she may live.

Let’s stop here for a minute: notice that the person who approaches Jesus is a leader of the local synagogue. In other words, the Senior Warden! Probably a member of the first century equivalent of local Rotary club and business roundtable. He must have loved his daughter very much and he must have been very scared, because this very respectable person just cross to the wrong side of town to find Jesus in this literal den of thieves! And notice that he approached Jesus while other local religious leaders—maybe his friends and colleagues—are standing outside tut-tutting and shaking their heads.  The passage doesn’t say so, but the implication is that his faith must have been very strong!

Jesus goes with the dad to care for his girl, with Matthew presumably following Jesus for the first time, which leads to another unexpected healing encounter.

Hidden in the crowd of the curious, a woman who has suffered her whole life from some kind of hemorrhage… most likely a disorder that affected her since puberty… was watching Jesus walk by.  The person was not only ill, but she was excluded from ordinary company, including other women, certainly she was never going to marry, and was probably also practically separated from her family. Because by the custom of the day, anyone she touched would be ritually unclean and therefore she risked not only condemnation but also fear-driven violence on a daily basis. But when she touches Jesus’ cloak as he passes, she is healed. Notice that Jesus doesn’t recoil in horror. He is not worried that he might catch her ritual cooties. Instead, he meets her gaze, commends her faith, and then blesses her saying “your faith has made you well.”

When Jesus finally arrives at the official’s house, it’s too late. The girl has died, and the mourning rites have begun. He assures them that all is well, but instead of saying “Watch this guys…!” or “hold my bier!” he observes that she is only sleeping. They all laugh... except apparently the desperate parents and family and a few followers who are holding their breath. After shooing away the professional mourners and after all the hub-bub has calmed down, he takes her by the hand and gently bids her to wake up. And she lives!

If you want to know why it is that we friends, followers, and apprentices of Jesus care about the poor, the sick, and those society would consider strange, weird, or different—if you have ever wondered why we find ourselves hosting recovering addicts in our buildings who might never walk into our worship spaces, or feed or clothe folks in need through our various ministries, or why we speak of love and compassion when the world revels in hatred, fear, and division, this is why: it is what Jesus did. He comes to us in the midst of our complicated lives and sits, chats, and eats with us. He touches us where we experience the most pain. He meets us at the point of our greatest need. He comes into our lives and homes and our hearts and brings life. He sees faith in us when others might only see fault and invites us to follow him.

In all three instances in today’s Gospel, people who lived on the fringes, separated by custom, choice, or circumstance from their communities, were reconciled and brought back into the lives of their families, communities, and daily lives in the company of Jesus.

What does it mean that Jesus called a hated tax-collector and quisling to follow him? It is so that he can live, and work and walk with dignity, respect, and wholeness as a person of God in community.

What does it mean to be made whole and healed and no longer living at the edges of society subject to the alternating vagaries of human pity and condemnation, as the woman was? It is to discover that one’s faith makes us whole and returns us to the family of God! 

What does it mean to experience new life? It is like Jesus coming into your home, and against all expectation, taking you by the hand, and inviting you to get up and live.

Following Jesus changes us. Jesus takes what we have always thought to be true and normal and expected and turning it upside down, inside out and giving it new life. It's not disruption, it's reconciliation! Grace, faith, baptism, sacramental living, and Christian community together all give us a new container—a new wine skin! — to live as Christ’s own forever. We are all called, welcomed, healed, and given new life because with Christ, our faith heals, reconciles, and makes us well.

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Second Sunday after Pentecost (Prober 5A), June 7, 2026, at St. Mary's, Dade City, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for The Second Sunday after Pentecost (5A).

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.