sermon

God’s way is the right-side-up way, and Mary follows it, inviting us to join her.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The feast of St. Mary, the Mother of Our Lord
Texts: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52; Romans 8:26-39

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Mary doesn’t sing of the world turned upside down in the Magnificat.

She sings of the world turned right-side-up.

When the Triune God asked Mary to bear the Incarnate Word into the world, it was to begin restoring the creation to God’s way. Mary sings of the hungry being fed, the rich emptied, the mighty set down, the lowly lifted up. That’s the way God meant the world to be from the beginning.

We turned it upside down.

We’re created in the image of God, Genesis says.

When God takes on human flesh in Jesus, we see humanity the way it was meant to be, the Triune God’s true Image. In Jesus’ teachings, compassion, and most vividly in his vulnerable love, Jesus reveals a way of life for us and the world that seems upside down. But it’s right-side-up to God.

God created this universe to live in peace and harmony, with all creatures loving each other and God, even human creatures. In God’s design, power isn’t used to harm others, in fact, “power” itself is vulnerable love.

Look at how the Triune God created humanity. We were given the freedom to choose our path, the freedom to love or hate, the freedom to obey or disobey. God’s vulnerable love exists from the moment we took breath. God risked everything hoping we’d become the loving, caring creatures God envisioned.

But, created in God’s image, we also have the temptation God must have felt.

Surely God was tempted to control humanity, tempted to use power to make us good creatures. Instead, the Triune God chose vulnerability and openness, risking all, even death on the cross.

Humanity chose differently. We’re the only creature that manipulates our environment to the degree we do, that has an impact on all creatures and all life that share this planet with us, and often that manipulation and impact harm our fellow creatures. We use power to control others, we hide our fear of vulnerability behind aggression and greed. We build systems and cultures and structures that consistently benefit those in power while equally consistently crushing those who don’t have power.

What we see in our world today has been repeated throughout history. People go hungry because others hoard resources. People are killed because others violently maintain power. People live in poverty because others create systems to generate wealth for those controlling the systems. People are oppressed because others who are threatened by them use their power to control their lives and never worry if harming someone else to benefit themselves is a problem.

But Mary sings that in this child, God is starting to turn the world right-side up again.

And God achieves this the same way as at creation: through vulnerable love.

Scattering the proud, removing the powerful from power, filling the hungry, sending the rich away emptied of their wealth, is not done by divine power and might. God still will not force the creation to follow God’s right-side-up way.

Instead, God comes as a vulnerable baby, born to a vulnerable woman willing to sacrifice her hopes and dreams to be a part of God’s healing. A baby who will fulfill his mother’s vision and his divine heart and invite people to follow God’s right-side-up way, willingly, lovingly, and join God in re-shaping the world.

This is why we honor Mary: not to put her on a pedestal, but to see her as our forebear, our leader, our mother.

She lived into the image of God she was, she dreamed of God’s right-side-up world, and bore a child to bring that world into being.

Jesus very clearly taught us God’s right-side-up way, the way to justice and peace through vulnerable love and sacrifice for each other, even letting us destroy his life, in order to break open our hearts to God’s way.

But Mary is our sister, who walks ahead of us, first to follow in Christ’s way. She’s our mother in this life of Christ, whose giving birth makes it possible for all of us to walk Christ’s path, whose willing “let it be as you will” is our model for our own response to God.

In God’s way, no one is hungry.

No one is oppressed. No one is trampled upon. No one holds power over another. No one is rich, but all have what they need.

Mary shows us we can live this way, we can say, “let it be so with us.” And start turning the world a little right-side-up in our own places. And when we, and eventually all creatures, follow this way, the world will turn fully right-side up as God dreamed all along.

And then our spirits, like Mary’s, will truly rejoice in God’s healing of all things.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

The true gift, the miracle Jesus gives, is to be in the boat with you and me, giving life and strength and hope for our calling to be Christ.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 19 A
Texts: Matthew 14:22-33; 1 Kings 19:9-18

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Wouldn’t this have been great to see?

Jesus walking on water in a storm, a group of terrified disciples, Peter trying it for himself? Ever since I was a child, I’ve wished I could have been there to see that.

But I’ve come to realize it wouldn’t necessarily strengthen my faith if I could. After all, some of the religious leaders who witnessed the raising of Lazarus didn’t come to faith in Jesus. They saw it as a last straw, the reason Jesus and even Lazarus had to be eliminated.

In the Upper Room on the Sunday after his resurrection, Jesus said, “blessed are those who trust in me without seeing.” Faith is trust without proof.

So if we can’t go back in time and see, and even if we could it wouldn’t help, and if faith is trust without evidence, how will we ever find faith?

Well, in this story the answer is in the boat.

Jesus climbs into the boat, after pulling Peter out of the drink. And the storm calms. He’s no longer a scary figure on the water that makes them think of ghosts. And for the first time in the Gospel narratives, people are said to worship Jesus.

Faith is found in the boat with Jesus, not looking out at the water for miraculous things to see. It’s Jesus’ way – and part of the reason he often tells people to keep quiet about the miracles.

Jesus came to restore the relationship between the Triune God and the people of this world, but not by by flashy miracles and interventions. He came to do it by relationship with us. With the believers, the searchers, the frightened ones, the doubters, the ones just looking for help, the lost and hurting ones.

Jesus creates a community out of love – the people in the boat with us – to surround us and support us and help us in our faith. And in the middle of the boat sits God-with-us, the One whose love is the reason for all in the boat to live.

And really, that’s the only way any of us have come to faith, isn’t it?

We call this room where we all sit the “nave” – it’s from the Latin for “ship.” And here in the boat of the Church we have met Jesus, have met God through him, have known the deep and abiding love of the Triune God, and been given the gifts of God for faith – bread and wine where God’s very presence dwells; water which not only cleanses us but brings us into new life from death; Word of God which guides and shapes and teaches and comforts and challenges.

Here, in the boat with Jesus, we can let go of our fear and marvel at what we know and see, and worship: “truly you are the Son of God,” we say with the disciples

See, this part of today’s story is always your truth. You may not see or experience identifiable miracles. But the Son of God is always in the boat with you, with me. Bringing you to faith. Calming your fear. Teaching you. Loving you. There is nothing to be afraid of if Jesus is in the boat. That’s the true miracle today.

But the boat isn’t Jesus’ ultimate goal for us.

It’s where he shows up to be with us, where he’s put us together, and helped us to faith. But it’s a boat, not a fortress. That means it’s going somewhere. Jesus and the disciples today are traveling to another place to do ministry.

Our nave, our boat, isn’t a sanctuary for us to hide in from the world. Paul says to the Romans today there are so many places who need to hear this Good News, so many places of ministry we need to reach – some literally neighbors to our boat, others that will take a little travel.

That means a few things.

First, you’ll want to pay attention to Jesus, to where he tells you your next place of ministry is, where he’s sending you to go, when Jesus teaches and guides and leads you and me in this boat.

And second, we’re not always going to get along inside the boat. The first disciples didn’t, so we shouldn’t expect that we will. Because Jesus fills the boat, not us, and brings whatever people he wants to. It’s his boat, after all. That can be hard. We naturally want to pick and choose our boatmates, and that’s just not our call.

And third, it’s a much bigger boat than just this nave – it’s the whole Church on earth now and throughout time. And especially with the Church on earth as it is now, that means that there really will be lots of folks in the boat with us that we just don’t like. But the thing is, Jesus knows our strengths and abilities, and brings folks into the boat who have differing gifts and abilities, all so the work that needs doing can be done. So he asks us to learn to love each other. And everyone else in the boat, as big as the boat is.

Because Jesus loves you. And all of them, too.

Not everyone gets a vision or a miracle to see.

But with God-with-us in the boat, like Elijah today, like Peter and the others, everyone gets the strengthening of faith and the gift of the Spirit’s power to do their ministry.

I’ll take that trade-off any time.

And I rejoice that all of you share this particular boat with me. And pray that together we’ll find the joy of seeing where Jesus will take us next.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

In the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus shows us an example of the reign of Christ in action. God pours abundance on us freely. We’re invited to join in that abundant sharing.

Vicar Erik C. Nelson
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 18 A
Texts: Isaiah 55:1-5; Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Today’s gospel reading is one of my favorites because in this short story, we see Jesus in one of his most human moments, that then moves into one of the most brilliant revelations of his divine power and the nature of God.

This first verse starts out, “Now when Jesus heard about the beheading of John the Baptist, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.”

This story starts out as one of the worst days of his life. His cousin is killed, so of course he wants to be on his own, to have time by himself, to feel the grief and work through the pain. He shows us that it’s okay to step away and feel what we’re feeling.

But that doesn’t last for long. Even as he goes off to a deserted place, the crowds find him and follow him. And it’s so beautiful that the next verse says, “he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them…”

He didn’t rebuke them and send them away, but instead he saw an opportunity. His cousin John came to proclaim that the kingdom of God is close at hand. And this crowd came to give Jesus a chance to show us that reality.

This crowd reminds Jesus, reminds us, that the kingdom of God, the reign of Christ, isn’t just some faraway thing, it isn’t just a utopian vision of the afterlife.

The reign of Christ comes to us now. It’s all around us. We can’t get away.

The people come to him seeking his love and compassion, and he gives it freely. He heals their sick, and when they become hungry, he feeds them from the abundance that can be found in five loaves and two fish.

He feeds them, and there is more than enough for everyone. By the end, there are still 12 baskets full of leftovers.

Some preachers explain this by saying that maybe each person was inspired by the generosity of others that they shared what little they had, and all together, their abundance overflowed.

I would lean more into the miracle of it all, with Jesus channeling his divine power to pour out abundance for them, for us.

I don’t think how it happened matters as much as the fact that it did happen. A hungry crowd gathered, and in the end they all left full and satisfied.

In the Gospel of Matthew, this story comes in the chapter right after the parables we’ve been hearing this summer. Jesus had been teaching the crowds, teaching us, about the reign of Christ, and this is him putting all into action.

This is him making it a concrete reality. Making it something we can see and taste and touch.

Last week, we heard Jesus say that the reign of Christ is like a mustard seed that grows into a great tree, with room for all the birds. In the reign of Christ, abundance grows out of the tiniest things.

And this abundance isn’t just about numbers. The tree isn’t big just to be big. The tree is big to provide a home for the birds. To become a place of safety and shelter.

It is impressive that Jesus fed 5,000 men plus women and children, which altogether is like 15,000 or 20,000 people. But it’s not just about the incredible numbers. And it’s not about just each individual being fed, though each individual is part of it.

It’s about all of us together, in family, in communion, in community. Every piece matters, as a part of the whole. In the mustard tree, there is a place for every bird, every squirrel, every insect.

In the family of God, in the reign of Christ, there is a place for each and every one of us. Because what Jesus is teaching us here is that it’s not about each of us on our own, getting whatever we want or everything we think we deserve.

It’s about something even bigger than that. That huge crowd, they’re all fed. Without any limits; without the disciples, or even Jesus, deciding who deserves it and who doesn’t.

Everybody gets food because Jesus knows that we all do better when we all do better. When we all have enough. When we recognize that together, there is more than enough to go around. God has provided more than we could ever need. And God continues to provide.

When we see that we have abundance together, we can stop holding on so tightly. We can loosen our grip. We can let go of our own little empires, our own little fiercely guarded, carefully curated corners of the world.

We can reject the messages of the world that say that you are defined by your work, by your career accomplishments, by your wealth, your marital status or the size of your family. We can reject any message that says you are defined by anything other than God’s love for you.

The reign of Christ is a reign of abundance, where God freely pours out love and grace and compassion on all of us, without asking beforehand if we deserve it, or if we can afford it.

Jesus is almighty, all-powerful God, and he is also our dear friend. He grieves for his cousin John. He has compassion on this crowd. He stretches his arms wide on the cross to show that his loving embrace is wide enough for the whole world.

God just gives and gives and gives, freely, without a price, without counting the cost.

Toward the beginning of this encounter, the disciples tell Jesus to send the crowd away. There’s not enough food for them, so they should go find it for themselves.

But Jesus, as he often does, refuses to send his family away. He already knows that he will provide for them.

He knows that in the kingdom of God, there are no outsiders. When Jesus looks at the crowd, it’s with compassion. When he looks at us, he sees his beloved family. He heals us. He cures our sickness. And he offers himself to us, the bread of life that always satisfies.

He invites us to come to him always, knowing that there will always be more than enough for all of us. And once we’ve eaten and received our fill, he sends us out to share God’s abundance with the whole world.

Thanks be to God.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

These images are Good News of God’s persistent grace in bringing life and healing to all through you and through me.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 17 A
Texts: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52; Romans 8:26-39

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Jesus is telling good news here.

That’s the truth in these parables of the reign of heaven. “Jesus went through Galilee,” Matthew says earlier, “proclaiming the Good News of the reign of heaven, saying it has come near.” (4:17, 23)

These images are all Good News. And that means there’s hope. For you. For me. For this world.

There’s hope in a tiny seed, Jesus says.

Walking alongside a field, Jesus sees a mustard plant flowering. He stops and says, “That’s what I’m talking about! God’s reign, the reign of heaven, is like that.”

A tiny seed carries the whole life and future of the plant inside it. Even if you can’t see it. It will germinate and grow and become a shelter for birds, a giver of shade.

Good news, Jesus says. That’s what you are! You might look and feel insignificant, small, unable to do much for this world’s pain, but you already have the glory of God’s love and grace within you. Living in God’s reign of love, you will grow and thrive and give shade and shelter in ways you can’t imagine now. You’ll be a blessing to others. Have hope in that, Jesus says.

There’s hope in yeast, Jesus says.

Walking along a village street, Jesus glimpses a woman through a doorway who’s making bread. He stops and says, “That’s what I’m talking about! God’s reign, the reign of heaven, is like that.”

Just a few little organisms placed in a big pile of flour start to grow, eat sugars, and a miracle seems to happen: a loaf rises out of that sticky lump, and once baked, it’s a delight to the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the stomach.

Good news, Jesus says. That’s what you are! You might look and feel insufficient, and the problems of the suffering world immense: what can so few do? But when you join with others and love as Christ in your little space in this suffering world, you change the chemistry of your world. From what seems unsightly and inedible comes nourishment for all, beautiful bread. Have hope in that, Jesus says.

There’s hope when you recognize real treasure, Jesus says.

If you found a treasure only you knew about, you’d do all you could to have it be yours. If you spent your entire life searching for the most beautiful pearl and found it, you’d sell everything to have it.

In God’s reign, love of God and love of neighbor transform and heal all things. Imagine this world, this city, if all loved God, all loved their neighbor. That’s the hidden treasure of God’s reign, that’s the pearl beyond price that you and I are invited to seek with all we have.

Good news, Jesus says. This way of vulnerable love I’m calling you to follow will bring joy to you and to those around you, transform your world. It’s a way of living that brings life to all. It’s the most precious thing you could know or seek. Have hope in that, Jesus says.

There’s hope in a big, wide net, Jesus says.

Walking beside the sea, Jesus watches people pulling in nets. He stops and says, “That’s what I’m talking about! God’s reign, the reign of heaven, is like that.”

And a net pulls in more than fish. Driftwood, old boots, even what some would call trash. Only the Netminder gets to decide what’s worth keeping and what isn’t. Now, Matthew’s added interpretation here says in the end times the good will be kept and the evil thrown on the fire. But that’s not Jesus’ verdict. At the cross, drawing all people, all things to himself, Jesus said, “every single thing in this net, in this world, in this creation, is mine and loved and redeemed by this.” Nothing will be thrown and burned.

This net opens up the joy of Paul’s strange words today about predestination that sometimes cause anxiety. Look carefully at Paul’s logic. He starts with “those whom God foreknew.” Well, the Triune God created all things, so is there anyone God doesn’t foreknow, any thing?

And all God foreknew, Paul says, God predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. Since God obviously foreknew the whole creation, then God also predestined all things to be shaped into Christ’s love. And those God predestined, God called, Paul says. Who wants to argue at this point that God doesn’t call everyone, everything? And those whom God called, God justified, and those whom God justified God glorified. Follow the logic: all are foreknown, so all are predestined to conform to Christ, therefore all are called, all are justified, all are glorified. God’s net is as wide and inclusive as the universe.

Good news, Jesus says. You might be an old boot, but God treasures you. “If God is for you, who is against you?” Have hope in that, Jesus says.

One thing here might give you concern: time is needed for all these to bring life.

The seed doesn’t grow to full stature instantly; the bread needs hours to rise. The treasure finder needs time to re-bury, get money, get title to the land. The merchant spends a lifetime looking for the beautiful pearl. And only when the net gets pulled up on shore is God’s treasure seen for what it is. Nothing happens quickly.

And that’s hard for us. We want things better now. We want a healed society where all are safe and loved and able to flourish and thrive. We want a world without war and hunger, a planet that is healing instead of burning up, we want the justice God dreams for all God’s children to happen now.

And maybe that’s why Jesus chose these images. Jesus invites you into the mystery of patient hope, asks you to ponder seeds and yeast and life-time searches, nets filled with things not immediately recognizable as precious. Have hope, he says. But learn patience.

Because “nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus.”

Even if it takes centuries, God will accomplish the healing and restoration of all things through this vulnerable love. These stories tell you God is persistent and steady and will finally get what God desires. Even if God has to die and rise to get it all started. Even if God has to work with tiny little seeds like you and me, people who struggle to see the treasure when it’s right in front of us, people who want to kick others out of the net.

At the cross, Christ drew all things into God’s embrace in order to send out all things for the healing of the creation. So God’s reign will come, is already near. Seeds are growing into trees, yeast is creating bread, treasures are found, nets are gathering in all things. Have hope in this. This is good news. For you. For all.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

In his parable about wheat and weeds, Jesus makes us think about the reign of Christ. Maybe, after 2,000 years, it’s time we reconsider what we call weeds and what we call wheat.

Erik C. Nelson
19 July 2026
Texts: Isaiah 44:6-8; Psalm 86:11-17; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30

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Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
—

In the year 1002, the Christian king of England, a man called Aethelred, issued a vile proclamation, calling for the extermination of all Danish people who lived in the realm of England.

In the days that followed, hundreds of people were killed by their neighbors. A couple years later, Aethelred proudly told a story of a couple dozen young Danish men in Oxford, being chased by their neighbors, who went into a church seeking refuge and barricaded the doors for safety.

Their neighbors, seeing that they couldn’t drive them out, set fire to the church, killing all those young men. In telling this story, Aethelred reached into today’s Gospel reading, saying, “all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination.”

Today’s parable, wielded as a weapon, has done unimaginable damage throughout Christian history. People who assume that they are the good wheat miss the point entirely, thinking that it’s their duty to destroy the weeds.

I want to invite you to reconsider the point of this parable.

This parable is not prescriptive, telling us what to do. It’s descriptive. It describes the world, which is a difficult place to live. It describes how good and bad seem totally intertwined.

And this is the way that for better or for worse, God, in infinite wisdom, has designed our universe. And this parable promises us that God has a plan to disentangle the good and bad, to save us from the suffering that seems unavoidable. But in the meantime, as we trust in God to provide for us, we wait.

We wait in a world where good and bad seem like they shouldn’t coexist, and yet they do.

Cycles of life and death and new life surround us. The good soil we grow crops in is organic matter, once made of living things, who got their sustenance from sunlight and the ground.

The sun, a giant orb that is slowly burning itself to extinction. The ground, made up of tiny rocks that were eroded over eons from mighty mountains who have their own life cycles on time scales we can’t imagine, rising up and grinding away and rising up again, over and over.

This parable describes our everyday realities. Good and bad, life and death, creation and destruction, they’re all tangled up.

That doesn’t give us justification to make more bad, more death, more destruction. It actively cautions against that.

Because very often when we are the ones who decide what is good and bad, who’s wheat and who’s a weed, we get it wrong. Our wisdom is not perfect.

One of the first things I learned in my college Environmental Science program was that there is no real scientific definition of what a weed is. Any plant can be a weed if it’s growing where people don’t want it.

We decide what a weed is. And usually we just use that as justification to destroy something. If you went back 50 years and showed people the wildflower gardens that we have in our parking lot now, the beautiful, beautiful gardens, they’d probably think the parking lot is overrun with weeds.

They’d probably pinch your ear and tell you you’re doing something wrong.

But in embracing these native plants we used to call weeds, I believe we’re finally listening to the voice of God. We’re seeing the wisdom of God in nature.

Saint Augustine said that God gave us two books of divine revelation, two ways to hear God’s voice, two ways to know God in the universe. The first, of course, is Scripture itself, and the second is all of creation. He called it the Book of Nature.

So what else is God teaching us about this parable, through nature? through weeds?

The incident described in the parable is something that has happened over and over, basically every year for the last 10,000 years or so. As long as humans have been cultivating certain plants as crops, other plants have been jumping into our fields as weeds.

This is a destructive process often, with those plants killing our crops or hurting us with their thorns, or just generally decreasing productivity, but sometimes those weeds have been what we never knew we actually needed.

Several of our favorite grain crops started as the weeds within a wheat field. Over thousands of years, rye and oats both underwent significant changes from their wild forms as people accidentally domesticated them.

Like the servants at the end of the parable, humans tried to sort the wheat from the weeds, but humans always made mistakes, happy accidents, and missed the oats and rye that looked the most like wheat.

As generation after generation of human farmers were tricked by the cleverness of the rye and the oats, those grains became more and more desirable as crops in their own right. And as humanity spread out around the world, they encountered more difficult climates where oats and rye could survive where wheat could not.

And so the weeds became the precious wheat. Oats helped humans move into hotter and drier climates. Rye saved my ancestors’ lives when they moved to colder and wetter places.

When we get up on our high horses, when we think that we get to decide what’s wheat and what’s weeds, we put ourselves in a dangerous position. We can’t even begin to imagine what we’re missing out on when we decide that we’re better judges than God.

When we hear the parable for today, I’m sure many of us had people we thought of when we heard about the weeds. An annoying neighbor. Difficult relatives. Certain politicians. Other Christians who believe differently from us.

When we think that we get to decide, we get it wrong.

The reign of Christ is not about who’s in and who’s out. The reign of Christ isn’t about who’s wheat and who’s a weed. The reign of Christ is about God’s cleverness surprising us. It’s about trusting God’s wisdom, the wisdom that comes to us through Scripture and through nature, as Saint Augustine would say.

The reign of Christ is always subverting our expectations, demanding that we reconsider our assumptions. The people we want to cast out as weeds might be the rye or oats that save us in the darkest times. The people we want to cast out are loved by God.

King Aethelred, that King of England who ordered those massacres, is remembered in history as Aethelred the Unready. The arrogance that led him to use this parable to justify brutal violence became his downfall. In spite of him taking up a sword and turning scripture into his weapon, he still lost the throne.

When we rely on our own wisdom to decide who belongs and who doesn’t, it can have disastrous consequences. Instead, rely on God’s wisdom, wisdom that comes to us in nature.

Wisdom built into the fabric of the universe that casts down the mighty, that lifts up the lowly, that binds up the broken-hearted and the beaten-down.

Wisdom that comes to you in bread and wine, simple everyday things, that are for us, the body of blood of Our Lord, the creator of the whole Universe, who made stars and mountains, and wheat and rye, and you and your loved ones and your enemies.

God, who sometimes works through our mistakes. God, who takes what we intend for evil and uses it for good. God, who is always extending grace and love to us.

God invites us to respond to that love not by wielding it as a weapon, but instead invites us to go into the world looking for the places where God is already working, making things more beautiful than we can imagine.

Thanks be to God.

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In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus invites us to share his burden. This is a beautiful invitation but also can be a heavy lift.

Erik C. Nelson
5 July 2026
Texts: Zechariah 9:9-12; Psalm 145:8-14; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

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Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
—

Today’s Gospel lesson is one that we hear often. It’s beautiful, it’s full of promise. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

And these are beautiful words, and there is truth behind the promise, but I have to confess to you that these words are difficult words for me to preach. Because as beautiful as they are the first time you hear them, the more you think about it, the harder it becomes to believe it.

Yes, sometimes we get weeks where we hear Jesus call the Pharisees a brood of vipers, or we hear him tell Peter to “get behind me Satan!” Those are tough, but they can be explained with some context and historical critique. Though they’re tougher on their face, they’re maybe easier for me to wrestle with.

These words from Jesus today are tough because they strike right at the heart of everyday lives. When we hear him say this, it feels contrary to how we live our lives, as Christians in America.

Jesus is gentle and humble in heart. He picks up on language from Zechariah, which says, “See, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey.”

Across our history and even today, there are countless instances where Christians have stopped reading after the first part. They hear it say, “Your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious.”

And they use that image to justify horrific things. They lose sight of the rest of Scripture. They lose sight of Jesus as a gentle and humble and compassionate ruler. 

They don’t read the rest of Zechariah that says the King will cut off the chariot, the war horse, and the battle bow. The King shall command peace to the nations. The King sets prisoners free.

In connecting himself to Zechariah’s prophetic image of a King, Jesus shows us what his reign is like. He destroys anything that we wield as a weapon. Jesus demands peace. Jesus frees the prisoner.

He stands firmly with the outcast and the outsiders. He stands with the people we hate, the people we cast aside. And that can be hard to hear. We often expect that we should be the insiders. 

But in this, Jesus offers us an invitation. He invites us to become outsiders. He invites us to disrupt systems that dehumanize people and dishonor his family.

He says this is an easy yoke, a light burden, but to be honest with you, that feels pretty far from the truth.

To follow Jesus, to take his yoke upon us, is to let go of our own priorities, our own demands, our own privileges, and to align ourselves with his priorities, his demands.

And that means, this weekend, being honest about the ways that our country has fallen short throughout our history. The genocide of Indigenous people, the horrors of slavery, the ongoing systems that strip people of their dignity.

These things happen in a country that proclaims itself to be One Nation Under God.

Paul was onto something in our Epistle reading today when he said, “the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability.” I think we all know what that’s like in our own lives. We want to do the right thing, but sometimes it just feels impossible.

It’s true of our own history as a country. We had our start with documents that proclaim that “all men are created equal,” and yet our country’s actions haven’t matched that desire.

The actions of Christians have left scars in this land and wounds in our people that we haven’t even begun to heal. That’s a heavy burden.

And it’s a burden that the people of God have taken up. Across this continent, over the last five centuries, there have always been people of God who have resisted systems of injustice.

The people of God have taken up this heavy burden, working for the Reign of Christ wherever they are.

We stand shoulder to shoulder with people like Bartolome de las Casas, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, and countless others.

People who have done their part, motivated by their faith, to try to make our national actions match our desires.

And so as we look into the future, remembering our past, we can start to see a way that maybe we can believe Jesus when he says that his yoke is easier than we think and his burden is lighter than we expect.

Because none of us carry it alone. We share this yoke with one another. We share this yoke with all God’s people across time and space. We share this yoke with Christ himself.

This image of Christ’s yoke is one that binds us together, like a team of oxen, pulling in one direction. We are bound together, just like we are in Communion. We are made into one body, broken for the world, so that new life might spring up everywhere.

The invitation of Christ’s yoke is the same one that our spiritual ancestors received. We are invited to know Christ personally and intimately in Word and Sacrament, and through the family of God, and then, to go out together, to do God’s work in the world. 

And yet again, I know we look at a world that seems to be careening out of control. All we see violence and poverty and cruelty, and it can be overwhelming.

But of course, we aren’t called to do all of it at once. There’s no way we could fix everything in a day. But instead, together, we can take it one day at a time. One step at a time, one moment at a time, one day at a time.

As we travel together, I pray that the reign of Christ comes with us, the yoke becomes easier, the burden becomes lighter, step by step, moment by moment, day by day.

May it be so.

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In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.