…I wonder what Jesus thinks about this theory of the Protestant Work Ethic. Having grown up well-versed in scripture, he should have agreed. He undoubtedly knew God’s instructions, given in the Ten Commandments, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God…” (Exodus 20:9-10). He may well have known the Proverb,

A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want, like an armed warrior. ~Proverbs 24:33-34

And yet, Jesus tells this parable, in which people who work just one hour are paid the exact same amount as people who toiled in the vineyard for a full ancient-Palestinian shift of twelve hours…

Image: Millet, Jean François, 1814-1875. In the Vineyard, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=50342 [retrieved January 29, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-Fran%C3%A7ois_Millet_-_In_the_Vineyard_-_17.1487_-_Museum_of_Fine_Arts.jpg.

…At their best, families are havens where love, learning, and long-term commitment are the priorities. Not all families are able to live up to that, but most families are trying, hard.

Family is complicated. Families are complicated. And the family of Jesus is no exception…

Image: McGough, Mary Charles. Holy Family, 1988, Duluth, MN, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57944 [retrieved January 23, 2026]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/clairity/14078166867.

… This parable makes my heart hurt, just a little. Why would one child say, “I will not do what you have asked me to do,” and then, go and do it? What was going on in the relationship between father and son? Was the son angry with his father, for some reason? It’s easier to understand why one son would say, “I will do it,” and never get to it. Maybe he had ADHD and simply forgot. I would definitely be the second son, not out of defiance, or lack of love for my parent, but because of my approach to all chores, which is to start in one room, move something to a second room, then have my attention drawn by something in there that means I never accomplish what I fully intended to do…

Image: Mironov, Andreĭ (Andreĭ Nikolaevich), 1975-. Parable of the Two Sons, 2013, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57607 [retrieved January 23, 2026]. Original source: Please search Wikimedia commons for the source.

…Anger is all around us, from altercations with other drivers, to political disagreements that strain and even break friendships and families, to the role models we have in our leaders. All I have to do to is to pick up my phone first thing in the morning, and look at the headlines, and I can awaken anger in myself even before I am fully awake. I do not recommend this as a way to start the day.

Why are we so angry? Where does our anger come from? What can we do about it? Is there anything we can do?

Image: Laura James, Sermon on the Mount, 2010, New York, NY, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57891 [retrieved January 23, 2026]. Original source: Laura James, https://www.laurajamesart.com/collections/religious/.

…Do we have our own ideas about what makes “good soil,” versus, what fosters poor conditions, in terms of our sharing the love of God with our neighbors? Do we limit our focus in spreading the good news to people who are mostly like us? Are we even in a position to know what “good soil” looks like?

Image: Gogh, Vincent van, 1853-1890. Sower at Sunset, 1888, painting, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57797 [retrieved January 23, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Van_Gogh_-_S%C3%A4mann_bei_untergehender_Sonne.jpeg.

… This commentary is true about scripture, as well. Bad Bunny’s halftime show overflowed with meaning. Our story this morning also overflows with meaning. It begins with an ominous sentence, and, if our ears prick up at that, surely, we want to know more about it. Ours is a story of green grass, and compassion, and hurting people being healed, and hungry people being fed. But it takes place in the shadow of verses that came before it, in the New Testament and the Old. Our story also provides a kind of glimmering looking glass into events that will come after it…

Image: Swanson, John August. Loaves and Fishes, 2003, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56553 [retrieved January 23, 2026]. Original source: Estate of John August Swanson, https://www.johnaugustswanson.com/.

…Our treasure is the thing it is worth reorienting ourselves for, the thing that gives our lives meaning, the thing that brings us, not ease, or even happiness, but a deep knowing that it is right. It is the thing that reveals the truth about us and about our lives. We find our treasure when we can be honest about ourselves, about our limits, and about what truly brings us to life…

Wednesday February 25

Image: Attribution various - Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn or Gerard Dou. Parable of the hidden treasure, painting, ca. 1630 CE, Esterhazy Castle, Budapest, Hungary, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55010 [retrieved January 23, 2026]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parable_of_the_hidden_treasure_Rembrandt_-_Gerard_Dou.jpg.

All our lives we have all been taught that this is the story of the fall of humanity from God’s grace. ….From the time of Saint Paul, this story has been depicted as the first sin that was spiritually deadly to all of humanity who came after. But neither that word nor that concept is found anywhere in the story. Our Jewish and Islamic friends do not see this story as depicting a fall. Rather, they see it as the first sin, and a kind of coming-of-age story, in which the participants emerge wiser and smarter, though there is a great cost to them….

Image: Monet, Claude, 1840-1926. Artist's Garden at Giverny, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57338 [retrieved January 23, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Artist%27s_Garden_at_Giverny_by_Claude_Monet_1900.jpeg.

…Make no mistake. Lent is about love. It is about our participation in remembering the most profound expression of love a people ever experienced.

So what does this have to do with our passage? What’s Jesus talking about? Is he saying that public prayer is always bad? I don’t think so. Jesus loved and took part in communal worship, and he preached regularly in the synagogues and the great outdoors. Jesus isn’t talking about the where of prayer, fasting, or giving, he’s talking about the why.

Why do we pray? Lots of reasons. We pray out of habit. We pray out of gratitude. We pray for urgent needs. We pray for relief from pain, physical, mental, or spiritual. We pray for those who have asked for our prayers, we pray for those we believe need our prayers. We pray for our loved ones. If we’re really listening to Jesus, we pray for our enemies. And all these are fine reasons to pray.

The only poor reason for prayer, according to Jesus, is the desire for praise and approval from other people. Jesus calls those who seek that approval, hypocrites. But it’s important to know that the original meaning of that word was “stage actor.” Jesus is warning against prayer as performance. He wants our prayer to be a heartfelt reaching towards God. Undergirding all our prayers, whether we’re aware of it or not, is the deep need for a relationship with God. Undergirding all of it, is love…

Image: Praying hands, courtesy of wallpaperaccess.com.

This morning we have a story from scripture that brings us into a liminal space, a moment when the veil between the world we see around us and another world is pierced. Jesus takes three disciples up a mountain to pray.  But before we get to that, I think it's important for us to talk about what happened six days earlier.

Six days earlier, Jesus was talking to his disciples, asking them what the crowds were saying about him, and also, what they, his closest followers, believed about him. Peter responded with a powerful declaration. He said, I believe that you are the Messiah, the son of the living God. Jesus blessed Peter for his words. He affirmed his wisdom and recognized him as a leader and bedrock of the church he was building. And Jesus told all the disciples to keep quiet about that. But then the conversation took a turn. Jesus told Peter and the disciples something unthinkable. Something horrifying. He told them that he would go to Jerusalem, where he would suffer at the hands of the authorities, and be killed, and then, on the third day he would be raised from the dead. Whereupon Peter responded by saying NO. Absolutely NOT. This must NEVER happen to you. Jesus, who had only moments before called Peter a bedrock of the church, said get behind me, Satan. You cannot interfere with the plans of God. Jesus ended this conversation saying that anyone who wanted to follow him would need to deny themselves and pick up their own cross and then follow where he leads.

That's what happened 6 days earlier.

Now, Jesus takes his inner circle—Peter, John, and James—up a mountain, presumably, to pray…

Image: Transfiguration of Christ, 1600’s CE, Benaki Museum, Athans, Greece, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56416 [retrieved January 23, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Transfiguration_-_Google_Art_Project_(715792).jpg.

The unnamed woman with the hemorrhage has faith that Jesus will heal her. And… this seems like a good time to ponder what faith is, after all. Many of us feel that faith is a thing, a noun, a solid block of thinking or feeling that never changes, never alters, is always right where we left it… until it isn’t. This can mean that when we have a change in how we experience our faith, it is unnerving, even frightening. Where did it go? Can we get it back? Presbyterian font of wisdom Frederick Buechner counsels,

…faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than a possession…it is… on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. [1]

Instead, he suggests that faith is, “not being sure where you’re going but going anyway.” It is “a journey without maps.” In this context, doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is a very natural part of it. We need to remember that. We need to trust the process that our faith may wax and wane like the moon, that, even when we can’t see or feel it, it is still a part of us.

Image: Jesus Raises Girl to Life, National Children’s Hospital, Tallaght, Dublin, Ireland, Metal relief sculpture, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55237 [retrieved January 23, 2026]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/feargal/6410830967/.

…I’m betting that, at least once in your life, you responded to someone or something like that, . Maybe it was when you were seven and your friend said, “Let’s try out for the team.” Maybe it was when you were in High School, and something inside you said, “I’m going to be a…. teacher, doctor, engineer, parent…” something in your insides said, “Oh, yes!” to a long-term plan for your life. Maybe it was that moment when you laid eyes on him, or her, or them, for the first time, and something in you said, “That’s the one.”

We receive all kinds of calls in our lives. I believe God has a hand, even in the ones that seem to have little or nothing to do with our faith. We experience calls to friendships, careers, volunteer work, and prayer. We experience calls to rest and to awaken and to read deeply something that is speaking to us in a powerful way.

There are so many call stories in scripture…

Image: Mosaic of Christ Pantocrator, Anonymous, 521-547 CE, from Saint Appolinaire Nuovo Basilica, Ravenna, Italy; from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59393 [retrieved December 14, 2025]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christus_Ravenna_Mosaic.jpg.

…All this… all this… is prayer. The people are not yet living in this time of true safety. They are not yet free of this terrible leader. They are watching as he throws away, not only the treasures of God’s Temple, but also everything they have been taught about their faith and what it means to live it out.

So they pray. They pray as if the things they are pleading for have already been accomplished—because God can do this. They pray the reality they long for into being. They pray with joy and confidence because they know that God is trustworthy…

Image: Coventry Cathedral - John Piper's baptistery window, Stained Glass, 1956-1962, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54907 [retrieved December 14, 2025]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/2426416488/.

…There are all kinds of reasons why this moment might appear in this gospel. I believe this is about the incarnation. God comes among us as a vulnerable baby, and at the age of 30 is ready to respond to the purpose of his life. Let me be clear. We don’t know what this was like for Jesus. It is easy to say, well, he is the Son of God, he doesn’t need to be baptized. But I think that diminishes the incarnation and moves us in the direction of, “Well, he only looked like he was human.” The incarnation is a truly madcap phenomenon, God completely divesting Godself of divine power, so that God could truly be in it with us—all of it. Growing up. Learning things. Learning a craft or skill. Navigating relationships. Listening for what God was calling him to do. If we let the idea of Jesus being one with God lead us to think this was all no big deal for him, we have lost the thread. This whole thing only works if Jesus is truly human, as well as truly divine…

Image: Valente, Liz. Baptism of Jesus, Drawing, 2021, Church of Vicosa, Vicosa, Brazil, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59319 [retrieved December 14, 2025]. Original source: Liz Valente, https://www.instagram.com/donalizvalente/.

…We have before us this morning a story that is at once awe-inspiring and laced with the sinister. We have the magi, noble personages from the far East—most likely Persia, what we call ‘Iran’ today. And we have a king, whose response to the presence of the magi and the news they bring is nothing short of panic. We have a natural phenomenon turned supernatural, divine, holy; and we have the most ordinary thing in the world: a child, not quite a newborn, whose family loves and protects him when the king’s true nature is revealed. Awe. Fear. And, in the end, an epiphany, leading to great hope…

Image: Dürer, Albrecht, 1471-1528. 1504. Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy. Adoration of the Christ Child by the Three Wise Men, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=46303 [retrieved December 14, 2025]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albrecht-D%C3%BCrer-005.jpg.

Have you ever wondered why a story begins, the way it begins?

“Call me Ishmael…” Moby Dick, by Herman Melville.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.

‘“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.’ Little Women, by Lousia May Alcott.

Every writer begins their story with something essential. A name. An opinion. A situation. Immediate insight into a main character. Whatever it is, it is something the writer wants you to know.

The gospels are no different. They give the hearer or reader essential pieces of information, so that we will fully understand the story being told. Our passage from Luke’s gospel—such a familiar passage, so beloved—begins, oddly enough, with the names of some politicians. Luke locates the story in time and place for us, telling us that Caesar Augustus is the emperor of the mighty Roman Empire, and that one of his lieutenants, the one who is requiring this trip of Mary and Joseph, is Quirinius, the governor of Syria.

Why does the writer tell us this? Why should we care? …

Image: Nativity on Ivory, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=31702 [retrieved November 7, 2025]. Original source: Prof. Patout J. Burns.

I think of Joseph, a somewhat shadowy figure. No gospel records his words, but three of the four gospels tell us that he was a teknon, a word that has been misunderstood as meaning carpenter, but which probably indicated that he was a stone mason. The gospels of Matthew and Luke tell us that he embraced Mary and her son as his own. Matthew further tells us that, when Joseph was told that Jesus’ life was threatened, he took his wife and child and they became refugees in Egypt. He accepted Jesus as his son; he raised Jesus as his own, and he protected Jesus when he was threatened.

But that’s all we know. Who was Joseph? And how did he feel about… all this?

Image: Gandolfi, Gaetano, 1734-1802. Joseph's Dream, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54282 [retrieved November 7, 2025]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:'Joseph's_Dream',_painting_by_Gaetano_Gandolfi,_c._1790.jpg.

Why do people create genealogies? Why do we sign up for 23 and Me or Ancestry.com? I think the answer is this: We want to know about our families, so that we can understand ourselves. Joyce, a cousin on my dad’s side, was fascinated with genealogies long before internet searches and mail-in DNA tests via spitting in a tube were ways of exploring our ancestry. She went to libraries, and post offices, and wrote letters to the City Halls of small towns in places like Poland and Latvia. She sent in requests for birth certificates and copies of ships’ manifests from the early 1900’s. She learned that my paternal grandfather was Jewish, something none of his children knew until Joyce discovered it in the 1980’s, long after his death.

Unlike the Old Testament genealogies, which are lists of ancestors and descendants, meant to tell the stories of entire family trees, the New Testament genealogies in Matthew and Luke are all about Jesus. They all lead up to him. We are being shown his lineage—the fact that he is a descendant of Abraham, which makes him a son of God’s covenant; and he is a descendant of David, which, for us Christians, is an indication that he is the Messiah, the one whom the prophets assure us will come to judge and to heal.

We have just read a very unusual version of the genealogy in the gospel according to Matthew chapter 1. In any Bible, Matthew’s list will show you the traditional form of this same genealogy: Father to son. “Abraham was the father of Isaac; Isaac was the father of Jacob;” and so on. Scholar and Roman Catholic nun Ann Patrick Ware compiled the genealogy we have before us today based on information found in scripture. It is a genealogy telling of Jesus’ descent by way of the mothers…

Image: Swanson, John August. Story of Ruth, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56561 [retrieved November 7, 2025]. Original source: Estate of John August Swanson, https://www.johnaugustswanson.com/.

…The story begins with Zechariah, a priest, serving in the Temple. A messenger of the Living God approaches him. The messenger tells him, Fear not, calls Zechariah by name, and tells him, “Your prayers have been heard.”

We can make assumptions about those prayers, can’t we? My first assumption is based on the next sentence: Zechariah’s been praying for a child, probably a boy, who could go into the family business of priesting. But… that’s not the only thing Zechariah may have been praying for. Maybe Zechariah has been praying for the coming of the Messiah. And…we have no idea when Zechariah has been praying. Is this a current prayer? Did Zechariah dare to hope for a child, even in the couple’s advanced years? Maybe Zechariah is the kind of person who prays for miracles. I know some who do this, unapologetically. Ask for miracles—why not, as long as you’re already praying?…

Image: Zechariah Coming out of the Temple Speechless, Cathedral of Amiens, France. 1508-1519, painted medallion on choir-screen, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=29361 [retrieved November 4, 2025]. Original source: image donated by Jim Womack and Anne Richardson.

I have a question for you: Do you like to know the ending of a book or a movie before you’ve read or watched it? Or do you do everything possible to avoid knowing the ending? I’m the latter… I will avoid reviews, shush people who’ve already read or seen it, and in every way bury my head in the sand, metaphorically speaking, in order to NOT know the ending of something I haven’t yet read or watched.

Then, this week I heard this, by the marvelous preacher, Anna Carter Florence:

When I was in high school, I had an English teacher named Miss Hayes who was famous for giving away the endings of the books we read. In fact, she’d do it deliberately. On the first day of class, she’d stand up front with the list of novels and short stories we were going to read that semester and speed-talk through every plot, like a movie reviewer. And because she was so good at it, we were always drawn into the story—spellbound 16-year-olds, ready to go home and tackle Moby Dick or The Scarlet Letter—and then, with no spoiler alert…she’d tell us the ending. Every time. We’d groan, and she’d grin, and say, “The most important thing about a story isn’t what happens. It’s how it happens. I’m telling you the ending so you can read the story backwards.”[i]

And, in a way, that’s what both Jesus and the lectionary for the first Sunday in Advent are doing: They’re telling us the end of the story. And the end of the story is this: God’s love makes right everything that is wrong. God’s love banishes everything that is evil and amplifies everything that is good, and spreads it over the whole world, so that all creation lives in peace and joy and gratitude…

Image: Harpursville, after the storm. 2014. P. Raube