SERMONS

Ivory Casten 8/9/26 Ivory Casten 8/9/26

Proper 14: God Sits Enthroned Over the Chaos

Readings for August 9

Intro:

Good morning friends. It is so great to be back with you. It was good to have a time to rest up and recuperate. I’m so glad that you got to meet my friends, Fr. David Griffin, two weeks ago, and Fr. TJ Ono, last week. Thank you for welcoming them. They really enjoyed being with you. This week I wanted to look at our Psalm passage together. Psalm 29, which we prayed together today, presents God’s kingship as terrifying thunderstorm and beautiful comfort. God will not let his work and fame be challenged by any lesser idea, god, or person who promises salvation. He will ultimately subdue chaos, and give his people the strength and peace they need for transform and to see His Kingdom come. As we look at Psalm 29, I want to invite the kids to come up.

Kids sermon:

How many of you have drink coasters in your home? Why do you have them?

When Ashley and I were first married we lived in Chicago in a little apartment. As a housewarming gift we received some coffee coasters from a local Christian bookstore. They had this black, glossy finish, with words like “faith”, “hope”, “love”, etc. The funny thing is, the more we put hot cups on them, the more scratched up they got. The damage continued as the plastic coating on the top began to start peeling. I scraped at one of them a bit more and realized that the veneer of faith, hope, and love, was only held on there with the plastic seal. I scraped it off to reveal a beautiful painted chicken underneath. Ha! Once this seal came off it never got scratched up again. Someone had taken a perfectly good coffee coaster and cheaply pasted a christian veneer on the outside. The hot cup’s heat would not be outdone by the plastic coating.

Today’s Psalm portrays God as a thunderstorm, destroying all kinds of things that people are tempted to worship or the things their false gods needed to use to survive: cheap finishes thrown onto what we really need. God’s voice shows up in this poem 7 times like peals of thunder and the idea is that God is never ultimately unresponsive. He will make his voice known and his plan will be accomplished. Sometimes we get off track and go down the wrong path because we love the wrong things too much, or someone tells us lies about ourselves or the world around us and we believe it. And because of these things we find ourselves overwhelmed by the chaos of bad outcomes even with all our good intentions, the weight of lies we have to keep up and keep track of, and the discouragement we might feel when we try to become good and virtuous when unhealthy people around us might call it ignorant, uncool, or shameful. But despite the chaos, God shows up and reminds us that he loves us, and the pain of getting rid of the wrong things will give way to God producing good things in us. Ultimately, he is conquering the chaos of sin and death in this world and in our lives. My constant hot cups of coffee would burn away the veneer of “nice Christian sayings” to reveal something more stable, good, and lasting. God too will show up, and when he does, what is ultimately good and beautiful will be made known. Would you please pray with me:

“Dear God...when we are scared...we can trust in you...take away the things...we trust in...that are not...worthy of you...and make us more like Jesus...Thank you...for your love for us...Amen.”

1. God will be over all and in all (1-9)

In Psalm 28, the Psalmist demanded that God not remain silent. Psalm 29 answers back with the voice of YHWH showing up 7 times. [Psalm 28:1]. The BCP and other english versions tone down what’s happening by translating the addressees as “the mighty” or “mighty ones”; however, these are deities, literally sons of the gods! This phrase shows up in Scripture in a number of places to refer to deities, dead heroes, and other things that are supernatural. [This comes from the language of the divine council of YHWH. See Gen 6:2,4; Job 1:6; 2:2; Job 38:7; Ps 89:7; Deut 32:8.] Israel would eventually come to be truly monotheistic, but at least in this point in its history, the people are at best, henotheistic, believing that YHWH is the supreme God, but that other gods like Amun, Hadad, and Baal still exist. This is precisely why the prophets rise up all the time to tell them to put away their idols!

The themes of this Psalm are set against the backdrop the theology of the Baal myths in popular Ugaritic, or Canaanite, theology: Baal was the Canaanite storm god who rides on the clouds, who clutches lightning. It is Baal that is worshiped in order to bring rain and given thanks when the rain comes for the flourishing of the harvest. In Psalm 29, Baal is just another worshiper in YHWH’s heavenly worship, “Ascribe to YHWH, you sons of gods, ascribe to YHWH glory and strength. Ascribe to YHWH the glory that is due his name. Bow down to YHWH in holy splendor.” This Psalm invites us into the both the beauty and the holiness of YHWH as king. The world that God made has been filled with sin and destruction, but God will restore it and God’s people would do well to pay attention to God’s ongoing work of re-creation both in worship and in the phenomena of nature.

God was victorious over the floodwaters of primeval chaos in the creation of the world and Psalm 29 invites us to reimagine this victory through the imagery of a thunderstorm. The thunderstorm sweeps in from the Mediterranean over northern Canaan. God will not remain silent. His voice is referred to seven times in this poem, like thunder-peals showing God’s absolute power and presence as an answer to the supposed silence. The voice breaks the cedars of Lebanon. These trees were needed by the gods to build the houses in which they dwell. YHWH is unconcerned about this. The lightning scares off the animals and makes the mountains quake. The storm moves from northern Canaan south into the wilderness. God’s power rules even over the vast wastelands where demons dwell, lands which long ago forgot humanity and humanity long ago left it behind. In the places long forgotten where demons seem to dwell and retain power, God is at work to subdue the chaos, if we would listen for his voice.

This passage challenges us to pay attention to the work of God in worship and in creation. What gets in the way of discovering the kingdom is often our own busyness, the false narratives we hold to in order to sustain that busyness, and the gods of money and power that we often unwittingly worship. One time I was on a hike with Cole and it was the time of Spring where the Virginia peepers were croaking incessantly. We heard them, but as we kept moving, the sound went away. They were still there, but they were hiding. Eventually we stopped walking and just listened. There they were again. We stopped and paid attention and their loud peeps reminded us that they were still alive and strong. God is the one who subdues the anti-creation forces that war against us. Jesus did it in his death and resurrection, and has given the Spirit to continue the kingdom work which destroys our false pretenses, wayward affections, and the gods we’ve created. His glorious thundering presence isn’t one ultimately of destruction, but a life-giving force of goodness, subduing that which is set against our healing. The Spirit is at work, we don’t have to manifest it or create it, we just have to pay attention to it.

2. God is kind and his goal is to grant strength and peace to his people.

The final thunder-peal of verse 9 moves us back to God’s throne-room where all cry “Glory”! God’s kingship has a goal, which is that his strength and peace are present and put on display in his people.

A good question to sit with is this “Today, or in this season of our life, what causes us the most emotional and spiritual turbulence?” Is this the anxiety about a new grade or new school in a few weeks? Is this the death of a loved one or a chronic health issue? Is this an unresolvable conflict in a relationship or the painful disappointment or realizing our life is half over and we wished we’d accomplished more? Is this the worrying dehumanization we see in political discourse or the current affairs we are reading in the news? There are many so-called solutions and false gods we might be tempted to run to for help, but what we will discover in them is actually chaos; they are anti-creation, and something that makes us less human as image-bearers of the divine king.

The Gospel passage today gives us an incarnate picture of this God. Peter walks out onto the water at the command of Jesus in a storm. [Matt 14:22-23]. Jesus is unaffected by the turbulence and chaos and Peter joins him. Peter takes his sight off Jesus for a moment and starts to sink. Jesus is undeterred by the storm on the sea or by the storm inside Peter. Instead, he reaches down in compassion and lifts him up out of the chaos. He reminds Peter of his lack of faith and asks why he doubted, but this does not deter him from rescue. Peter is lifted out of the chaos and when they get into the boat, the storm ceases. Jesus is YHWH who subdues the chaos: the chaos out there and the chaos in here.

Conclusion

The God at work in creation, who orders the chaos, is the God who provides the strength and peace his people need. He is also the God who looks at us with compassion, and reminds us that despite our times of inner chaos and doubt, our desire to be rescued is enough and he will reach out his hand and calm the storm outside and within. We, of all people, should be the most calm, unaffected, and differentiated because we pay attention to and worship the thunderous and mighty God whose voice breaks the cedars and stills the waters of chaos. When your senses get dull, take up Psalm 29 and let it be your prayer to help you see, feel, hear, know, and sense the God who subdues chaos, rules over all, and in whom all things will be made new.

Let us pray:

“Almighty God, our strong tower of defense in time of trouble: We offer you praise and heartfelt thanks for our deliverance from the dangers which lately surrounded us and for your gracious gift of peace. We confess that your goodness alone has preserved us; and we ask you still to continue your mercies toward us, that we may always know and acknowledge you as our Savior and mighty Deliverer; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Ivory Casten 8/2/26 Ivory Casten 8/2/26

Proper 13: Questions in the Wilderness

Readings for August 2

Again, good morning! My name is TJ, and it is my great delight to be with you this morning. During the past couple of years, I’ve gotten to know your pastor, Fr. Morgan. And he has been such a sweet gift to me. When we hang, he often tells me how much he loves each of you. And he really loves and cherishes you. So it is my great honor to share this morning with you.

So friends, let’s pray:

Father, we thank you for these few moments around your Word.

Spirit, would you give us ears to hear, hearts that long to obey, and power to walk in your ways to the glory of your name. We pray all this in Jesus’ precious and holy name. Amen.

I serve as one of the priests at Incarnation, down the road in Alexandria. And something we like to do during the summer is start each of our sermons with a question for our kids. But this morning, I want to begin with a question for kids both young and old! So if you have a childlike heart, I invite you to wonder!

I want you to imagine being taken up in a helicopter, from right here in Springfield! And then drops us off on a desert island with no technology and no resources. And then the helicopter flies away – What’s the first thing you would do when we were stuck in the middle of no where? How would you react?

Today we are going to talk about questions that arise when we are in seasons that feel like the wilderness, like we are on a desert island with no technology and no resources.

Throughout my few, short decades of walking with Jesus, I’ve become convinced that throughout our lives, we’ll experience times and seasons that feel like all the different stories in the Bible.

We’ll have moments that feel like high, highs. We’ll feel like we are with Moses and the Israelites as they were freed from captivity in Egypt. Or maybe we’ll feel like Peter, James, and John, when they were on a mountain top with Jesus, and saw Jesus’ body radiate with uncreated light at his transfiguration.

And then, we’ll have seasons that feel like low, lows. I’ve had seasons when it feels like all I’m doing is wrestling with God in the night, like Jacob. Or maybe we’ll feel trapped, like the Israelites in Egypt, as they waited for 400 years for God to liberate them. Or maybe we’ll feel like Jesus’ disciples after Jesus after their Lord had died, just trying to make sense of the grief of this world.

And I’ve also become convinced that most of the time, in most of our lives with God, we often find ourselves feeling like when we live under God’s care, God often leads us into times, places, and seasons that feel like the wilderness.

Places of uncharted territory, invoking both feelings of wonder and mundanity.

Times that feel like the messy middle, provoking a sense of fear, anxiety, and scarcity.

Seasons where there are more questions than answers, leaving us feeling vulnerable and risky.

And this is the place where our lectionary readings meet us this morning, in the places of wilderness. And this morning, I want us to think about the kinds of questions that arise within us when we are in places and seasons that feel like wilderness.

Our new testament reading comes from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the ancient church in Rome. And these words are his concluding words – to the height of the heart of Paul’s theological vision – of how Jesus changed everything.

And throughout Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul argues that salvation is here, because of Jesus. Sin, death, and hell no longer have the final word, rather God has the first and final Word, and his name is Jesus. And yet, Jesus has not finished what he has started. Our world is still waiting to be filled only with resurrection life. But until then, God is here – in and with us. And in this place and time of waiting, the Holy Spirit is present and working.

Or to use a different image from the book of Exodus, we are still awaiting the promised land. We are somewhere in between being freed from slavery in Egypt and making our way into the land of milk and honey. We are wandering in the wilderness with God.

And just like questions arose within the Israelites while they were wandering through the wilderness, questions will arise in us.

Our Psalm this morning, Psalm 78, shares with us that while Israel was wandering in the wilderness, that the questions that arose within their heart were questions against God – They questioned: “Can God [really] spread a table in the wilderness?” And who cares that Moses struck a rock and water gushed out, “Can God [really] also give us bread or provide meat for his people?”

And if we are all honest, we probably can’t point our fingers in judgement against the Israelities, because we’ve probably all asked questions like them.

And at some point, in all of our walks with Jesus, we will probably ask a question a lot like the Apostle Paul. Let’s listen to his words again. He writes:

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we

are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

And here, Paul offers a very real question. He asks: When things get bad, when it feels like God is far away: Is God punishing us? Did God leave us?

In the ancient world’s imagination, bad times were signs of divine punishment. And our imaginations are probably not too far away from the ancient world’s imagination. We still live in a world of consequence. And we are all searching for meaningful answers, especially when life is painful, hard, and complex. And so, when we are walking through seasons that feel like wilderness, we will probably ask questions a lot like – Is God punishing me? And did God leave me?

And to emphasize his point here, Paul quotes Psalm 44, in which the nation of Israel is asking this very question. In the psalm, they cry out to God, “This isn’t adding up. We are experiencing somuch defeat and destruction all the time. But we have not forgotten you, God, or been false to your covenant. Help us.”

So in the context of pain and hardship, in the context of what feels like wilderness, in the context of the questions – Is God punishing me? And did God leave me? – Paul answers the questions with a “no.” He writes:

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And in Paul’s response here, Paul does something weird. He does something that is not very Paul. Paul could have said, “Nothing will be able to separate us from God.” But rather he says, “Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Typically, Paul associates love with the Father. And he associates Christ, the Messiah, the Son with grace. But here, Paul associates the messiah with Love.

It’s as if Paul is pointing our imagination back to the one who revealed himself as the God who is “ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Nehemiah 9:17). The God we heard about in our Nehemiah passage, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jabob, the covenant making God, YHWH.

Here, Paul shows us that Jesus, the Messiah, Christ, is YHWH in flesh. The God who kept his word to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and King David will continue to make good on his word.

For he is “ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” And absolutely nothing - no experience, no past, no future, no power visible or invisible, no circumstance, no pain - can separate us from the God –

who proves his love for us,

first through Jesus,

and now the Holy Spirit,

even while we are in the wilderness,

wading through the messy middle,

waiting for Jesus to finish what he started.

Because of Jesus - God’s love, God’s promises, and our destiny and ultimate reality are set in stone. We are covered by Jesus’ blood. We are being made whole by Jesus’ body. We are filled and empowered with the Holy Spirit. And we are fully welcomed and received by the Father. Our small lives are being caught up into the life of the one, true, living God. And our destiny is set. We will embody resurrection life with the one who is Uncreated-Life forever. Nothing can ever change this. Nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now, I want to finish with one final thought about “the wilderness” from our Gospel reading, when Jesus feeds 5000 men and their families. Matthew tells us that this story happens in “a desolate place.” Another translation for the word “desolate” is “wilderness.” The context of Jesus’s miracle of feeding the 5000 is in the wilderness.

And here, the disciples find themselves in the wilderness with Jesus and crowds (plural) of people. Jesus’ heart churns for the crowds of people who need healing, who hurt, who have no way to get what they are searching for. So Jesus tends to the people. And as suppertime approached, the disciples were getting hungry and tired. You can hear it in their voice.

And they exhort Jesus, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves” (14:15).

Now watch what Jesus, their teacher on life with God, does. Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat” (14:15b).

And as the disciples looked into the wilderness and only saw the overwhelming needs of the crowds, they said to him, “We have only five loaves and two fish” (14:16). When the disciples looked into the wilderness and only saw desperation and overwhelming need, they only saw two fish and five loaves, seven items in total. They only saw resources that wouldn’t make a dent to address the situation before them. They only saw a little bit of the ordinary to meet an extraordinary need.

And I’ll be the first to confess that this week, I found myself sounding a whole like the disciples, “As I look at these things before me – in my work and in my life – what I saw is about five loaves and two fish.”

In the wilderness – when we are navigating unchartered territory, when we feel like we are in the messy middle, when we are in a season with more questions than answers – we’ll be tempted to look around and only see scarcity. We’ll be tempted to see only our finitude and our limits. Five loaves. Two fish. Seven items in total.

Now, watch what Jesus, their teacher on life with God – watch what he does. He says, “Bring them here to me” (v. 18).

And then, the disciples put their measly offering – five loaves and two fish into Jesus’ hands. But now, when they looked at their measly offering, they didn’t just see seven items. They saw seven items plus God. The disciples now count to eight.

Within the Bible, the number eight symbolizes new creation and resurrection. And here, we see our measly offerings, in the hands of God. And God can use whatever as means to usher in new creation and resurrection into our world.

And we often find that God especially loves to use what we bring to him.

I love the way New Testament scholar, Frederick Bruner, puts it:

The disciples think they have ‘nothing here’ except these seven items. But they are counting only the realities that impress them, not the Reality that should impress them most.

When Jesus’ disciple looked out into their overwhelming circumstances, they only saw their resources, and yet they neglected to see God among them.

Church Father, John Chrysostom, says this marvelously:

Note carefully [Jesus’s] the Teacher’s skill…He did not say “I give them” but “You give them.” For at this point their regard for him was essentially as to a man. They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” At this point Mark adds, “They did not understand the saying, for their heart was hardened.”

Chrysostom’s words, “For … their regard for him was essentially as to a man,” may sum up one of the primary temptations as we wander in the wilderness, waiting for Jesus to come back.

When it looks like we and our resources are scarce, when the road looks too uncertain, too hard, too daunting and too long, when life and the world around us seems overwhelming and chaotic, we may be tempted to blind eyes to God who is with us. Or to count God as one who is just like us.

But the good news of God is that God is not just like us, but God became like us so that we might become like him, full of life and love for the sake of our neighbors.

So friends, no matter what season we are in - and especially if we are in a season that feels like the wilderness - may we remember that God has not abandoned us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. God is here among us and in us.

And our call to love God and our neighbors does not change, even when we are in seasons that feel scarce. And so may be disciples who always count to 8, who always bring the very little we have and place it into the hands of Jesus, ready for Jesus to do with us whatever he desires, knowing that God is making all things new and caring for all his creatures.

Friends, may it be so. Amen.

To end, I just want to invite us into a moment of silent prayer. Would you close your eyes and take a few deep breaths? And then when you are ready, would you ask God, “What’s one thing you want me to bring to you?”

Ivory Casten 7/26/26 Ivory Casten 7/26/26

Proper 12: The Surpassing Worth of the Kingdom of God

Readings for July 26

Good morning. I’m going to begin with a question that I’ll address first to the children and then the adults. Was there ever something you wanted so bad, you felt like you would do almost anything to get it? What was it? And what did you have to do to get it? When I was a kid, there was a time when I put all my focus and energy into getting my hands on a Nintendo 64 and a copy of Pokemon Stadium to play on it. The console and the game were teased for ages before their release, and I filled that time doing as many paid chores as I could.

Now for you grown-ups, veteran shoppers that you are, I’ll ask it a little differently: think of the best bargain you’ve ever found. What did you have to do to get it? At a minimum, good bargains tend to require speed, right? If everyone knows about it, then you probably have a lot of rivals chasing after something priced well below its actual value. And if very few people know about it, you want to use this fact to your advantage by scooping it up before others find out. Who among us hasn’t hidden a product behind other things on the shelf, hoping it's still there when you come back?

In our reading from Matthew 13, we see a number of short parables that Jesus told, among which are the two about very expensive things: We find them in verses 44 to 46.

44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

This sermon is a meditation on these verses. They are deceptively simple. But they are one, among many, ways that Jesus sums up the Kingdom of Heaven and what those who seek it do when they find it. If we take away nothing else from these two parables, let us take away this: that (1) the Kingdom of Heaven is the most valuable thing you will ever find; and (2) if you truly understand what it is worth, you will do whatever it takes to get it.

But first, what is the Kingdom of Heaven or, as the Gospel of Luke has it, the Kingdom of God? Briefly, the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus proclaimed is not so much of a place, as it is an event, something that happens, and it happens once and for all. You could render it as “the rule” or “reign” of God. It refers to the point in history when everything that’s gone wrong with creation is put right by the Creator. When the Kingdom arrives, God will make good on all of His promises to His people. It will be a moment best described in the Lord’s Prayer; when the Kingdom comes, God’s will will be done on earth, just as it is in heaven. God will show he has heard the cry of the poor, the sick, the downtrodden: these are the last, as Jesus calls them. The rich, the powerful, those of high status in this world: these are the “first,” in this age. But when God’s Kingdom comes, the first will be made last, and the last will be made first. But above all, the most “last” of all, the dead, would be raised to life again. The New Testament is, by and large, the story of how the Kingdom arrives with Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. That’s part one, the forgiveness of sins. Part 2 is the promise that the redemption of all things will be complete when Jesus comes back. All those who want to enter it, do so by trusting and following Jesus.

Okay, back to the parables. The first important thing to note is that one has to find the Kingdom of God. You do not make it. You don’t cause it. You do no work to set it up. The Kingdom is just there. It is an objective thing, quite independent of our striving, of our doing our best (or not), even of our church-going or praying or Bible-reading. It comes ready-made, like it or not. So on the one the hand, this aspect of the kingdom comes as pure gift. The event happens purely on God’s own initiative. Similarly, like a treasure or a pearl, you don’t come across God’s Kingdom and think, “hmm, it needs a little something. I wish it was a little more blue.” I was explaining gifts and gratitude to my kids recently. Sometimes when you offer a little kids something for dessert, they accept it with a thank you and enjoy it. Other times, they might actually get mad that you offered them cake instead of ice cream. So I explained, “I can’t remember a time you found a stick or a rock to play with and complained it wasn’t some other, better stick or rock. You treat those things as though they were the most interesting thing in the world in that moment; it wouldn’t even occur to you to be upset or disappointed. You just accept it because hey, free stick!” To their credit, they seemed to take in that lesson. If, then, we can appreciate the little things in life like that, how much more can we receive with joy the Kingdom God has prepared for us. So this aspect of the Kingdom, let’s call it its foundness, inspires in us thanksgiving. Freely we receive God’s gift of redemption.

On the other hand, God’s Kingdom is unique. The thing about buried treasure and pearls of exceedingly great value is you don’t come across them all willy-nilly. That’s part of what makes them feel valuable to people, is the fact they are so rare. Let’s do a little exercise: imagine for a moment something you had only ever heard or read about, or seen on a screen, but one day, seemingly out of the blue, there it was. What was that like? Maybe you watch birds but have never had the privilege of spotting a Northern Saw-Whet Owl [I had to look that one up, as I’m not a bird person]]. As someone who loves the science of plants, I get the same feeling when I stumble on a flower I’ve only seen in books. It’s like meeting a celebrity! The surprise factor makes the encounter itself even more marvelous. Likewise, the Kingdom of God is very rare. Indeed, there’s only one of it. This aspect of Jesus’ teaching might be concerning to some: what if I don’t find it? Is it really hidden, like the treasure and the pearl? After all, Jesus himself says in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and few are they who find it.” If this causes concern, I have two responses. The first is, well, we should all be concerned with the path we are on in life, and whether it is the right one. We have a full forty-six day season called Lent dedicated to that kind of reflection. So in one sense, I’d be concerned about those who are not concerned! But in another sense, Jesus is of course not looking to discourage anyone from finding the Kingdom; quite the opposite! So something else is going on here. I think a lot of what Jesus is saying has to do with the uniqueness of the Kingdom. There’s only one right way to get there. One must repent of one’s sins and turn to Jesus, by trusting and following him. But there’s an infinite number of wrong paths. In the parable, it’s precisely the uniqueness of hidden treasure and great pearls that makes the man and the merchant rejoice when they find them! So the Kingdom’s uniqueness makes the heart leap for joy when we find it. For this we praise and worship our God and King, Jesus.

Lastly, though the Kingdom of Heaven comes ready-made, without any contribution from us, you will put everything you’ve got into getting your hands on it. That’s another aspect of these parables that is easily missed: the man in the field and the merchant recognized what it was that they found. Have any of you ever watched Antique Roadshow? It’s all about this second-hand thrill you get when you watch everyday people learn that they found a million-dollar painting in their grandma’s attic. Now that they know what they have, you can bet that they’re going to take very good care of it. In these parables, the man and the merchant know from the start what they’re looking at. It’s the discovery of a lifetime. You can imagine the scene right now. They are arrested by the sight of the treasure, or of the pearl. It stops them dead in their tracks. After glancing over both shoulders to see if anyone is watching, they take another hard look at it once, twice, and a third time to make sure they are seeing correctly. Because if this thing they found really is what they think it is, their lives as they know it are over. Everything changes. These treasures dwarf the value of all the things they own combined. If these men are wise, which by all accounts they are, they will waste no time. They convert all their assets into cash to buy this thing. To do otherwise would be pure folly. Thus, Jesus is saying the Kingdom of God makes a claim on you and your life. It demands action, one way or another. In fact, it demands everything from you.

Jesus seems to have meant it pretty concretely too. He is constantly encouraging people to sell off their possessions and give to the poor. So the fact these figures in the parables sell all they own is no coincidence. When he is talking to the rich young man elsewhere in the Gospels, what does Jesus say? Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and follow me. He doesn’t require a mere attitude change; such a reading is one way we domesticate Jesus’ wild teaching. No, that would have been trivially easy for the rich man. On the contrary, Jesus taught that wealth has a way of staking a claim on our lives that competes with God’s. You can’t just keep serving mammon, or wealth, as long as you think the right thoughts about it. You have to sever ties with it. But let me make a clear distinction: one does all this out of joy and thanksgiving, the kind you have when you stumble on a hidden treasure that even the richest man on earth couldn’t afford, but here it is, yours for the taking. And the Kingdom’s incomparable value lays claim to far more than your possessions. It is so valuable that you will joyfully devote your entire life so that you might have the riches of God’s Kingdom. It’s that great a bargain.

Well, it appears that what took Jesus about 15 seconds to say has taken me about 15 minutes. But then, he always was the better teacher. If these parables mean anything for you or me, they should kindle in our hearts a sense of awe and wonder, to fill our souls with thanks and praise, that Jesus brought the Kingdom with Him and in finding Him, we have found a treasure beyond all accounting. And for all I’ve said up this point, the way He taught us how to get into the Kingdom was simple. He said: come, and follow me. In a few minutes we will do just that: we will come to meet Him at the table. There we receive Christ as pure gift, the manifestation of God’s Kingdom, whose worth knows no equal .

Ivory Casten 7/19/26 Ivory Casten 7/19/26

Proper 11: Patience for the Good Work of God

Readings for July 19

Introduction

Good morning friends. It is great to see you this morning. This morning’s passage from the Gospel is another agricultural metaphor, but with quite a different purpose than the parable of the soils, which was the Gospel passage last week. This week highlights God’s kindness, mercy, and his patience as he invites people into life in the kingdom of God. The way to discover a good spiritual harvest in this passage is through patience to look for what is ultimately good and beautiful versus what is ultimately harmful. I want to invite the kids down now for our kids sermon.

1) Kids Sermon

Hey everyone. I know that we have talked a lot about plants lately. I have one more to consider today and then I’ll move off of plants when I get back from vacation.

I want you to look up at the screen with me. Does anyone know what seedlings we might be looking at here? [Let them answer] On the left, the one with the finger, this is a common carrot. Once it is fully grown, you can pull it out of the ground, wash it, and eat it. The one in the middle is wild carrot, or Queen Anne’s Lace. It is mildly toxic. But the one on the right is called Hog Weed, or poison hemlock. It looks deceptively like a carrot, and it’s related to it, but every part of that plant is poisonous. Can you imagine being a farmer who sells their carrots to the market to make a living, and have someone mess with your crop? Imagine that in the middle of the night someone came in and took seeds from poison hemlock and queen anne’s lace after you had just finished sowing your carrot seeds and then the queen anne’s lace and hemlock both grew in with your carrots. That would be absolutely devastating!

What if, after about a month, the farmer notices that not all the plants are the same? What is the risk if they start pulling things at that point? That’s right! They might pull out the actual carrots with the other things. This means the farmer will lose money. If the farmer would wait, they will be able to figure it out. Queen Anne’s lace will flower after about 2-3 months. Poison hemlock and carrots both take over a year to go to flower. But in that time, the poison hemlock stems will start to turn purple and the leaves will become big and broad. The farmer’s patience will pay off. If they can wait 6 months to a year, they can eradicate the wrong plants so that their harvest can still be plentiful.

We often want things to go our way right now. But it is through patience, in waiting, that God is at work. Sometimes we go through really difficult things and we just wish God would make them better already. Jesus’ disciples felt that way too. Would the kingdom just come already!?! Jesus is reminding them, and us, of God’s kindness and our need for patience. God is at work even when we don’t understand it in ways we may never fully be aware of. What we perceive as slowness is God’s kindness at work, drawing people to himself. And because God is at work, we need to trust Him even when things didn’t go how we thought they would. The disciples of Jesus were to look to Jesus in their waiting and keep growing in their relationship with him. This is the same call for each one of us as well. Please pray with me: “Dear God...thank you...for your mercy...you give good gifts...and when we don’t understand...all that is happening...we know you are working...for our good...thank you...that you are with us...and that you love us. Amen.”

2) God’s Patience is Merciful (cf. OT and Psalm) (vv 24-30 and the other parables afterward)

In today’s parable about the kingdom of God, Jesus tells us about someone who sows good seed in a field, but then when everyone is sleeping, an enemy comes and sows weeds. These are not just any weeds, but they are likely darnel, which looks exactly like wheat until the heads of the grain form. If darnel gets mixed in with the wheat, it will ruin someone’s crop. Even though it looks like wheat, darnel is actually toxic and can make you quite sick.

The slaves of the household, understandably, want to pluck it, but the problem is that in trying to get rid of the darnel they risk losing some of the wheat crop as well. Instead, the master says to let the two grow up together. Essentially, once they mature, they will see exactly which is which. Then the reapers will be called and will separate the wheat from the darnel and store the pile of wheat in the barn. They will take the pile of darnel to be burned.

The slaves’ question is helpful in understanding why Jesus tells the parable. They say “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where then, did these weeds come from?”[1] It gets to deeper human questions: “Why did you put this cruel person in my life?” Or “Why do tyrants still rule over people?” Or, “Why do good, hard working people, get exploited?” Or “How could you allow me to go through that awful situation in which I was so harmed?” Or even, “Why can’t I be healed?” These are good questions that God is big enough to hold for us.

Jesus isn’t providing answers for the “why”, but acknowledges the real and spiritual reality that the Lord, which he laters refers to as the Son of Man as a way to refer to himself, has planted good things. God gives good gifts and makes things good. When creation is described in Genesis it is described as good. In the Syriac translation of the Old Testament they translated it with a word that has semantic overlap between good and beautiful. I like thinking about what God does for us and in us as ultimately good and beautiful.

But that beauty is always growing up next to things cruel and destructive. The enemy of humanity sows counterfeit and toxic weeds next to good wheat. That which is most subtly wrong, what might even appear beautiful at first, is the most diabolically wrong because it is the enemy of what is truly beautiful. These weeds can be people who look like they’ve got it all together, but to try to imitate them is to bring about death. The weeds might be that we should defy our aging and changing bodies to pursue vain beauty. They might be messages about how we should be doing more, or that we should be better off by this point. These might be subtle messages that promise the kingdom and salvation, but don’t ultimately produce the freedom promised. We can see this on a grand scale with leaders who lie and make up problems that don’t exist so that they alone can fix them in order to stoke fear and anger and garner support.

We can see it in good desires gone awry — which is also diabolically subtle. For example, it is a good desire to have children; it would be harmful to desire children in order to fight a culture war or have someone to take care of your needs. It is good to desire a relationship with others, but not at the price of cutting off part of yourself to please them. Good desires misapplied fall short of what is truly good and beautiful. It is a good desire to see God’s kingdom, but the subtly diabolical lie is that it must happen right now in my time and by my power. This is fear and power that circumvents the patience necessary to see God at work.

This passage speaks directly to fear. The disciples may wonder if this is the time to take up arms and fight for the kingdom. There were certainly militaristic groups of Jews at the ready for it! If we take up arms at every injustice we will live in constant fear and exhaustion, and miss the opportunity to see what God does in his patience. There are several times in the Old Testament where God is called the one who is long-suffering and patient, showing mercy and compassion, etc. His character functions like a creed that forms the foundation for the covenant he made with his people. His compassion, mercy, and patience are the guiding principle of his working. He ultimately wants renewal through repentance, and not destruction and separation.

3) God’s glory will be revealed in renewed humanity (cf. Romans 8) (vv 34-43)

While the central theme of this parable is patience, the other part is that there is hope for the renewal of mankind. What God plants is truly good and beautiful. When Jesus explains the parable he says that the one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, an allusion to God’s restorative work in Daniel 12. Patience is necessary to hang on long enough to see God’s mercy at work. God won’t ultimately let evil win, nor will his work be rushed by us. I do often wish that God would work on my schedule, but transformation is often slow, happening at the speed of restored relationships. God leads with mercy. He is a kind parent. NT Wright says this beautifully: “God is not a sadistic monster who would happily consign most of his beloved, image-bearing creatures to eternal fire. But there are equal and opposite caricatures we should also beware of. God is not an indulgent grandparent determined to spoil the youngsters rotten by letting them do whatever they like and still giving them sweets at the end of the day. We must refuse the second just as firmly as the first.”[2] We can come to our patient God who longs to meet us with his mercy and transformation. He sows good things and his nature is to love his good creation.

Conclusion

Today’s passage is an encouragement for us to discern God’s beautiful and good work with patience. Sometimes things or people spring up who are opposed to what is ultimately good and beautiful. Rather than being immediately reactive, we need to be prayerfully responsive. This requires patience and trust to see what the Lord will do. At the same time, be aware of subtly diabolical work in this world that is set on destroying the good work of God. The best way to expose what is good and beautiful versus what is subtly destructive is stay prayerfully aware of the work of Jesus. In the hard work of patiently enduring and looking for Jesus, God is slowly transforming us into a people who gloriously bear his image.

Let us pray:

O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[1] Matt 13:27

[2] Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-15 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 173.

Ivory Casten 7/12/26 Ivory Casten 7/12/26

Proper 10: The Heritage of the Suffering Servant

Readings for July 12

Introduction

Good morning friends. Today we read a beautiful passage from the book of Isaiah which I’d like to unpack for us today. You’ve probably heard parts of it quoted in the New Testament, but I want to see it in its context. The passage raises questions we often ask, like “Is working this hard and not seeing any outcome really God’s will?” Or “Why do I feel so spiritually dry and the Lord feels so far away?” The passage is all about the goodness of life promised by God sitting juxtaposed with the reality of the muck we’re in at the moment. I want to invite the kids up for our kids sermon.

1) Kid’s sermon

How many of you have heard that song “I’ve got peace like a river”? Can you sing it with me? [sing] Have you ever thought about what that means? Why are rivers peaceful?

On the one hand, it is a peaceful thing for us to sit next to something beautiful we cannot control. If we are talking about our passage though, rivers do much more than just create beauty. They provide what is necessary to make things grow. Can anything grow in this dirt? Why not? [Hold up dry dirt and let a child pour water into it.] How about now? What will happen if the dirt gets too dry again? What would happen if we continued to consistently water it? There is so much about God and rivers in the Bible. In our Psalm passage we heard the phrase “the river of God is full of water, to provide the people with grain”. They counted on healthy rivers and streams for life. Our passage in Isaiah 55 today starts with this verse: “Look! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.” We need God’s wisdom for our lives like the thirsty ground needs water.

Over time if we try to do things on our own, our hearts can grow hard, but God has planted the seeds of the kingdom of God, of new creation, in our hearts. When we come and seek Jesus, ask him for help, ask him to know his love for us, it is like pouring water on the dry soil of our hearts. God makes good things grow. We are invited to come to the one who says “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

Would you please pray with me? “Dear God...thank you...for sending Jesus...who died for us...and rose again from the dead...we come to you Lord...because we need you...when things are good...and when things are hard...thank you for loving us. Amen.” Thank you for listening. Go ahead and head back to your seats.

2) vv 1-5 Wisdom for the heritage of the suffering servant

Before jumping into Isaiah 55, let me give a bit of intro. The book of Isaiah from chapters 1 through 35 are inviting the people of Judah to come back to covenant faithfulness to God through cycles of oracles of judgment and salvation. Chapters 36-39 are narrative and tell the story of King Hezekiah’s run-ins with king Sennacherib of Assyria. While Assyria does’t take the southern kingdom, by chapter 39, King Hezekiah does something foolish. He welcomes the Babylonian envoys of king Merodach-baladan, the king of Babylon and shows them all the treasures of Judah. This set us up to anticipate the exile where Babylon would come and conquer the southern kingdom of Judah, destroy the temple, take all their riches, and relocate most of their people across the Tigris and Euphrates, into Babylon.

In chapter 40 we encounter Judah already in exile, people who have been ripped away from everything they know, who long for the good things God said he would do. Chapters 40-55, sometimes called deutero-Isaiah, traces the story of God’s deliverance from exile and healing from their years of unfaithfulness.

In this section there are four songs that are called Servant Songs and they mention how God would restore his people through his servant. This servant would bring justice to the nations and would be a light for the nations.[1] Then in a surprising twist, the servant would endure all kinds of suffering while trusting in the Lord, and he would suffer for the people to bring them healing.[2] If you’re reading or hearing this text before Jesus, it is a unclear about whom this servant language is referring. God promises redemption to those who join in the heritage of this servant.[3] This brings us to chapter 55 where those who are part of the heritage of the suffering servant are invited to God’s renewal and restoration.

God has promised a new and everlasting covenant with the those who join the heritage of the suffering servant. The servant has made redemption possible and those who will join him will find life. Judah had wandered, like a lost hiker who veers off to the right for a long time into they do full circle, Judah had become lost and some may have wondered if they were to far gone to be found.

This is a problem we are all prone to. Like Judah, we need this invitational reminder to come and find what we need in Jesus, who is the ultimate heritage of the suffering servant. God’s posture is kind and invitational, eager to show mercy to those who return. It is not one of waiting to see where we will fall in order to say “look where you are at now...I told you so.” There are hundreds of micro-decisions we make in a day and we need this invitation. I want to encourage us to ask this question right now: “How do I seek the Lord’s wisdom in my...[you fill in the blank]?” Reflect as you consider a typical day, times of vacation coming up, anxieties that sit below the surface about big things in the near future. As we consider the week ahead, what meetings we will have and the people we will encounter, where do you need the Lord’s wisdom? If we can make a habit of asking that question, we will keep the ground soft and wet for the seeds of the kingdom to grow because we are seeking Jesus.

3) vv 6-13 Invitation to trust the Lord for what we don’t yet understand

In verses 6-13, those who follow the suffering servant are invited to seek the Lord whose thoughts and ways are not our own. We are invited to entrust ourselves to the one whose ways are mysterious as we put away evil, and return to the God who shows mercy. In the context of deutero-Isaiah, this meant trusting that the exile was not permanent, that God’s plan was not done, and that someone they couldn’t see would suffer for them and deliver them. The prophet says, “Seek the LORD while he can still be found; call for him while he is still near.” The Lord hasn’t left. The encouragement is that it’s not too late, but also don’t wait. Everyone has stuff to work through that impacts their relationship with God and relationship with others. If you don’t start processing those things in your 20s, you will in your 30s. If you haven’t done the work in your 30s, you’ll probably have to do even more work in your 40s because now there’s an extra decade of baggage and the load just gets heavier and heavier. Often the times we are most disoriented is where the Lord is most at work as he brings us into a place of reorientation.[4]

Sometimes doing the hard work of figuring out the real problem can be scary because it takes us to unknown places. Whether it’s a staff meeting, hearing confession, or spiritual direction, I’m always struck by the fact that the problem as presented is often not the real problem. Someone might say “I spend to much time on this social media app.” If that’s the real problem, then the solution is just simple behavior modification. A better questions might be, “When do I look at this app, and what happened prior to going on it?” “What did the content of this app provide for me?” “Does that same longing and desire show up any place else? And I wonder why I have this desire in the first place?” This could be used for overworking, over-exercising, avoidant behaviors, or overreactions. Once we have asked better questions, then come to the God who is near and waiting for us, this will be a much more profound opportunity for healing as we learn the Lord’s will for us and our good desires misapplied.

Our places of instability and disorientation might just be the soil of new creation. This passage reminds us that God’s ways and thoughts are not ours. In fact, they are about as different as heaven and earth. The good news is that in Jesus, heaven breaks in to renew the earth. And so it is that in the vulnerable places of faithfully opening ourselves up to God’s healing as we obey him, the promise is that He will restore and renew what has been broken and torn down by sin and shame. This is precisely what it means for the writer to say that God’s word shall not return empty. Isn’t it interesting to have this promise bookend this part of Isaiah both in chapters 40 and 55.

Conclusion:

In the experience of feeling uprooted, untethered, and away from home and familiarity, God is present to refine, renew, and restore. God hadn’t finished his story with his people, but it certainly took unanticipated turns from their perspective. These moments of disorientation were the very seasons that God used to dislodge His people from her brokenness, idols they trusted in, sinful desires for autonomy, and their false hopes that their neighbors would keep them safe through political alliances. More importantly, he took these image-bearers and highlighted where cracks had occurred so that as they come to him, he can restore what was broken.

This new-creation work comes through Jesus, who is the suffering servant in whom the new covenant begins and in whom the people of God are restored. For those who claim allegiance to the heritage of Jesus as the suffering servant, and seek him as their savior, his word will not return void. Today’s passage is an encouragement to trust him, to depend on his wisdom in the face of what is unknown, and to ask better questions of ourselves so we can call to him for healing. Dependence, good questions, and vulnerability soften the soil of our hearts to the kingdom work that the Holy Spirit is doing in and among God’s people.

Let us pray:

O Almighty God, you pour out on all who desire it the spirit of grace and of supplication: Deliver us, when we draw near to you, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind, that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affections we may worship you in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1] Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6.

[2] Isaiah 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12.

[3] Isaiah 54:17.

[4] Cf. This comes from the orientation — disorientation — reorientation from Walter Brueggemann’s commentary on the Psalms.

Ivory Casten 7/5/26 Ivory Casten 7/5/26

Proper 9: Finding Wisdom and Rest in Jesus

Readings for July 5

Introduction

Good morning friends. It is so wonderful to see you. This morning’s passage is a very familiar one and is a beautiful invitation to come and know Jesus both because he is the source of God’s wisdom and because he is the source of rest for us who are weary. He is teaching his disciples something really important, and as we look at what he’s teaching them, I want to begin by inviting the kids down to join me.

1. Kids sermon

This picture is of Ashley and I when we started dating. We were about 18 and just getting to know each other. Since I didn’t know her that well, how do you think I got to know her better? [Let the kids answer]

I could have put together a document or spreadsheet and made observations, asked people who knew her about her: family, former teachers, friends. I could have asked to see old home movies or seen a baby book to learn information about her. But if I had done a bunch of fact-finding without being present with her, then that would be very strange. I’d be more like someone in a fan club than someone in a relationship. Getting to know someone better requires presence, vulnerability and trust. We need the moments where we play and laugh, get into arguments and need to make repair, work on projects together, take long drives, and share lots of conversation along the way. These are the ways people come to know each other.

How do you all make friends? [Let kids answer] Even that requires presence. Sometimes we treat the Lord like we’re in a fan club rather than in relationship. We might memorize facts about God and the Bible, read history, know theology, do the liturgy, do really good service for the community in the name of God, but to do these without constantly coming to the presence of God means we run the risk of knowing a lot about God without knowing him. Today’s passage gives us a glimpse into the ways that Jesus, the Son of God, lived in the presence of His heavenly Father. He wasn’t just studying to know facts about Yahweh, but He was living his life in the presence of the Father, listening for his voice, and kind of like in an apprentice, he was watching and then imitating. In our lives we will have really fun things we get to do, really hard things we have to do, times that we are lonely, sad, and scared, times that we are excited, and many times we’re just making it through the day. The invitation today is to live in God’s presence in all of these spaces, listen for his voice, and learn wisdom and how to rest as we grow in our relationship with Jesus. And to do that, we have to know Jesus and not just about him.

I want to invite you to pray with me: “Dear God...you are here...with us...you never leave us...thank you for loving us...give us grace...to live our lives...to know you....and your love for us...amen.” You can head back to your seats. Thank you.

2. Invitation for the simple to find wisdom — Come to Jesus as the revealer of true, hidden wisdom (vv 25-27)

In Matthew 11, St. Matthew takes us into a prayer of Jesus. In this prayer, Jesus names that everything has been given to him from the Father, no one knows the Father except the Son, and if anyone wants to know the Father, he only can if the Son reveals him. In other words, if we want divine wisdom, we must know Jesus.

Jesus is actually alluding to a Jewish tradition about wisdom that we find in the book of Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Sirach.[1] In Sirach 51:23 it says “Draw near to me, you who are uneducated, and lodge in the house of instruction.” Then in verse 26, “Put your neck under her yoke and let your souls receive instruction: it is to be found close by.” This was written several hundred years before Jesus’ ministry and represents a wisdom tradition within Judaism that seeks wisdom from God as its source. If you want to know the goodness of divine wisdom, then come to know Jesus. If you want to know the goodness of the life that wisdom promises learn from Jesus. This involves grounding ourselves in the grace of Jesus. We have to build our lives around habits of knowing Christ and his grace for us.

3. Invitation for the weary to find comfort — Come and bear the yoke of the one who bears us (vv 28-30)

Jesus then invites us into rest. Each Sunday we take time to confess our sins to the Lord. This is not to plague ourselves with a deep sense of guilt, but to take seriously our disordered loves and attachments, the harms we have done, the good things that we have neglected, the ways that we’ve messed things up for ourselves and others, and to tell God about them because he is the one who can make all things new. We make a daily habit of confession to build the muscle of agreeing with God about what is broken and where his grace is available to make us more like His Son. This daily habit builds into what we do each week in confession corporately. It only makes sense if you’re doing it regularly and individually outside of Sunday worship.

As we receive absolution in community, we are invited to share this peace with one another. Exchanging the peace is not primarily a welcome time; however, your smiles that welcome one another in peace are holy and should not change. The purpose is symbolically to remind one another of the grace we’ve received and give to others.

In any given week we been overbearing, controlling, hurtful, avoidant, inappropriately fearful, selfish, longed for the praise of others, neglected the good work God that has for us in the name of what is easier, and we’ve spoken curses against one another. In confession we name these as places of brokenness as we come expecting the grace of God to begin and continue to change us. The work is never done this side of God’s coming again, but there is progressive healing when we are attentive to the work of God. And in between the confession and the offer of pardon, we hear the comfortable words of Jesus, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Insofar as we have come to know the brokenness of our lives and the world around us and we’ve come to grips with how weary we’ve become because of it, we are made all the more aware of our need for rest. One author put this well, saying, “To all of us who are burdened, exhausted by our sin or its effects, the first gift of the Comfortable Words is that God acknowledges our misery. We do not have to hide our longing and need for good news. Even better, God loves to respond and provide the rest we need.”[2]

Jesus says his yoke is easy and burden is light. This isn’t like an animal yoke where two oxen pull a yoke together. This is a yoke that helps distribute the weight of pulling something across someone’s shoulders to lighten the load. The Pharisees had spoken about people carrying the yoke of the Torah, which is the heavy burden of the Jewish law and all its commandments. This is cumbersome and confuses the minutiae for the guiding principles. Sometimes we can make much of the minutiae to try to keep ourselves spiritually and emotionally safe. A rigid and self-imposed heavy load is not necessarily virtuous, but it can make us feel safer. It becomes a wall to keep ourselves in and keep others out. We can do this in other areas of life as we try to control small details, but miss the bigger picture.

Rather than religious scrupulosity or holding onto control, Jesus invites us to come to him and find rest. Pursue rest; this isn’t laziness, it’s not taking the easy way out, but it is prioritizing Jesus as we arrange our day’s goals and calendars. If we find ourselves in a state of overwhelm, exhausted, emotionally drained, totally spent, fed up, and deeply hurt or troubled, come back to this image of the good shepherd with his arms open wide. He is not waiting to condemn us or berate us. He is here to welcome us with tenderness.

Here is one place this showed up for me. I remember sitting with my church planting coach a few years back and telling him about a really hard week I’d had. I probably spent a good 20 minutes in an emotionally-charged rant that spanned different areas of frustration between different areas of my life. He looked at me, took a deep breath, affirmed that what I was feeling made total sense with what I was going through, and then he kindly asked me questions about what my fears were, what Jesus might be asking of me, then he asked me why it was so hard to have grace for myself in the things that were hard. We can often spiral and then heap shame on top of it because we feel like we should be able to move on and get past it. We berate ourselves for our reactions and then become much harder on ourselves than God is. I think deep down, there was this felt sense of “no one is going to come and help. It is up to me. If things fail, I am at fault. If things go well, it is because of me.” As I took that to Jesus later, it’s like he was saying, “Your yoke is too heavy. You’re carrying things I did not ask you to hold. Give yourself the compassion I give you. The outcomes are mine to hold.” Jesus invites us to rest and learn from him.

Conclusion

We busy ourselves with outward markers of accomplishment or networks, successful ventures, or status, that makes us feel safe; these things deceive us into thinking that we just need to push through in our own strength. Jesus’ invitation is to come and rest. Come to know him in the example left in the tradition of the church in the Scripture and in the lives of the saints. Come to know him in the community of faith; in the lives of one another. Come to know him in the prayers of the church, in the moments of attentiveness in the midst of very ordinary daily rhythms. Come to know him in the stillness and silence, no matter how brief, as we learn to frame the the day in the light of God making his dwelling in our midst, giving us rest, and making all things new. Come to the one who says to us, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

[1] Sirach 6:23-30; 51:23-27.

[2] Justin Holcomb, “The Comfortable Words: An Invitation to Rest.” The Living Church, February 16, 2024. https://livingchurch.org/covenant/the-comfortable-words-an-invitation-to-rest/

Ivory Casten 6/28/26 Ivory Casten 6/28/26

Proper 8: The Relational Cost to Real Transformation

Readings for June 28

Introduction

Good morning dear friends. It is wonderful to be with you this morning and continue together in the Gospel of Matthew. As we look at Matthew 10, I want to invite the kids down.

Kids’ Sermon

I was thinking about an analogy in a book I was reading and it reminded me of our passage today.[1] Cars have these great dashboards. Anyone want to guess what any of these lights might mean? Now I want you all to take a pen cover up things one by one. Ah.... now that it is all covered we can drive in peace, right? We don’t have to be scared or anxious anymore do we? No way! Those lights are meant to tell me to go get something fixed. I know it is hard to stop what I’m doing one day and get the car fixed, I know I have to risk spending a lot of money and potentially putting myself into debt. But the reality is, if I don’t fix the car and I ignore its signals, there will be a moment where everything just gives out and there will be no hope of getting to my destination...or worse — We might get into an accident.

Our bodies have indicators just like a car’s dashboard. When we start to get angry, we might start to feel our shoulders tense up, our neck might feel warm. When we get sad, we might feel something like a lump in our throat. I got into a disagreement the other day; I had this feeling down in my left side, something despair and guilt. We should pay attention to these things: anger can give us energy to push back against something wrong, sadness can point us to what is important to us, and guilt may illuminate something we need to apologize for. They are all indicator lights that something is happening inside us.

If we cover the dashboard and keep driving it will be hard to follow Jesus with our whole selves. Someone may make us really angry and we want to lash out and hold a grudge, someone hurts us and we want to hurt them back. Perhaps we feel ashamed and we go off by ourselves and don’t let anyone else into our life. We keep everyone at arms length can’t figure out why things feel off. Will we pay attention and let Jesus bring peace and healing so that we can share the goodness of Jesus with others?

Sometimes when we are honest about who Jesus is, what we need from Jesus, and what others need from Jesus, it can make them upset. Is it worth the risk? This is what Jesus is talking about today with his followers. It can feel really risky to respectfully tell our parents that we feel hurt by what they did. It can be risky to ask a friend if we can pray for them. When we do this, we’re not being disrespectful, we’re giving a gift. It’s up to the other person to accept it as such. That risk is the only way to real peace and healing. When we do the hard work of following Jesus and being honest, it might be hard, and there might be pain, but you know what we discover? We discover life as it ought to be because Jesus is in charge and we will know his loving friendship even when it is hard. Can you please pray with me?

“Dear God...thank you...for loving us...you died for us...and rose from the dead....and you are with us...even when....doing the right thing...is really hard....thank you...Amen.” Thank you all, go ahead and head back to your seats.

34-39Though costly, prioritize God’s kingdom

In St. Matthew’s Gospel, we have just read a really challenging passage. In the overall picture, Jesus has just commissioned the twelve disciples to carry out his ministry. Then he tells them that as they are following him they will encounter persecutions and trials. This is to be expected. Today’s passage is intentionally provocative. Jesus, what do you mean you came to bring a sword and cause family members to hate each other?!?!

He’s not saying that we ought to hate each other. There are plenty of other places in Scripture where the reign of the Messiah is associated with peace and where we are called to love our family members and our neighbors. There is nothing virtuous about loving violence or hatred, but when Jesus and his kingdom are our first priority —which is virtuous— the result might be violence and the breaking of relationship. This is the risk of following Jesus as Lord. It is about priorities: Following Jesus more than pleasing other people.

Jesus is quoting from the Bible and putting us in the line of the prophets when we follow him.[2] Another prophet told the religious leaders, “They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying “peace, peace,” when there is no peace.”[3] Jesus’ disciples, including you and I, enter into the prophetic burden of his messengers where we do what is good and right, following Jesus in the midst of chaos, waiting for God’s vindication. Rather than sweeping things under the rug in the name of niceness, we seek for real transformation.

Real peace is hard-fought and costly. Here is a composite scenario; this isn’t anyone’s story in particular, but feels like several scenarios I’ve heard. Darryl comes to me and says that his supervisor at work is often rude and condescending to him. In the break room one day the supervisor comes in and tells Darryl, “Your coworker Alice told me that I talk down to people, what does she know? She doesn’t know anything.” Darryl follows Jesus, and has endured a long history of condescension from his supervisor, but has done the internal work to know that he is competent and a hard worker. More than that, he knows how beloved he is by God and now has the capacity to hold space for his supervisor’s condescension. He has a choice, he can tell his supervisor “You’re right, what does she know?” This is uncaring, but it is easy, and it does not take his supervisor’s wound seriously. He is preaching peace, peace when there is no peace. Or, he can risk. Depending on the amount of risk, he might say “I can appreciate Alice’s experience. I have experienced you that way too.” Or he might be more subtle and say “Huh, tell me more about what you think made her feel that way. Have others told you that before? What might it feel like to apologize for that and what keeps you from it?” Darryl would be giving his supervisor a gracious gift: an opportunity to see Jesus at work. The risk is that Darryl’s supervisor is provoked to anger, resentment, and a grudge. This could set up Darryl for real trouble at work, but this is the risk in naming the grace of God to help free people from disordered attachments to sin and evil. We have to do the inner work with Jesus on our places of disordered love, fear, and attachment, looking to Jesus for help, so that we can offer true peace to our relatives, friends, and even those in our church family. Triangulation and indirect communication, slander and gossip, dehumanization, resentments, and coping behaviors are all indicator lights that show us something is broken, but carefully helping others name their own brokenness is costly.... and the only way to peace.

Some people think that prioritizing the kingdom just means doing a lot of stuff for the church to the neglect of other duties. This is to have good desire and good intentions, but the wrong execution. The world is not split up into secular tasks and sacred tasks. Instead, and I get this from C.S. Lewis, the daily tasks are all invitations to the will and kingdom of God and it is up to us to participate in them religiously or irreligiously. It does take healthy rhythms of prayer, Scripture reading, and community to frame the day this way, but it also sanctifies and makes holy all the parts of our day: Those conversations you’re not looking forward to with a family member, coworker or friend, making lunches in the morning, correcting a child or apologizing to a child, going to doctor appointments, the inconveniences when things don’t work out the way we’d hoped. Doing the hard work of rightly ordering our interior world with Jesus creates the capacity we need to help others discover the kingdom of God. In other words, the hard conversations aren’t derailments from the work of the kingdom, they are the soil in which the seeds of the kingdom begin to grow.

What keeps us from the work of the kingdom? This gets us back to the warning lights on our body’s dashboard? What story does our body tell? Perhaps there is a fear of rejection (Which ironically is Jesus’ point). It could be the voice of self-condemnation: we have come to believe the voice of someone who told us that we are a trouble-maker, an outsider, unlovable, ugly, overemotional, just too much, clingy, etc. And as we hold to those scripts we begin to act out of self-defense and self-preservation, incapable of vulnerability because we’ve vowed never to let ourselves get hurt again. We need time in Scripture to know the God who longs to be at home among his people, especially when they do things that are evil and turn towards him in repentance. We need time in prayer to know the nearness of God or to be fully ourselves in the presence of the one who might seem distant sometimes, but who always holds space for our full selves. It is hard work to carve out time to pay attention to our good loves and desires have become distorted such that we now notice our overreactions, our sinful proclivities, our disordered loves, and our wayward desires. It is so much work. And it is precisely that work that Jesus uses to make all things new. And when he does this in us, we have capacity for that hard work with others — even in the face of rejection.

Conclusion

When it comes to discipleship, being nice and not making waves is like a ceasefire. It doesn’t move things forward in the work of God’s kingdom. It is just the path of least resistance. Kingdom work involves honest curiosity and wonder in the face of brokenness — and that starts with ourselves. Of course we must have wisdom about when to stay silent and when to speak, but the reality is that it is risky to be courageous, kind, and curious about what is true of someone and the world they’ve constructed because it involves us constantly reorienting our interior world toward Jesus and his kingdom. This is the hard work of following Jesus; this is true peace-making.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed: Kindle, we pray, in the hearts of all people the true love of peace, and guide with your pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth; that in tranquility your kingdom may go forward, till the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1] Chuck Degroat, Healing What’s Within.

[2] Micah 7:6

[3] Jeremiah 6:14.

Ivory Casten 6/21/26 Ivory Casten 6/21/26

Proper 7: Two Sources, Two Humanities: Grace Abounding

Readings for June 21

Romans 5:15b-19 NRSV

Many years ago, bottled water companies began emphasizing not the bottle, but the source.

Their message was simple:

if the source is pure, the water will be pure.

If the source is contaminated, everything downstream is affected.

We understand this instinctively.

In fact, modern history gives us sobering examples of it.

In 1993, the city of Milwaukee experienced a major water crisis when a single microscopic contaminant entered the municipal water supply. The result was catastrophic: over 400,000 people became ill, and dozens of deaths were linked to the outbreak. Ordinary households across an entire city were affected—not because of what they did at their taps, but because something had gone wrong upstream at the source.

Whether it is river, a reservoir, or an entire distribution system, the principle holds: when the source is compromised, everything downstream is affected.

Paul says the same thing about humanity in Romans 5.

Our problem is not merely that we make bad choices downstream. Something has gone wrong at the source.

One man's trespass (deliberate and conscious decision) unleashed sin and death into the human race. Adam is the source from which the river of fallen humanity flows.

But Paul immediately introduces another source. Through one man, Jesus Christ, grace has overflowed to many.

If Adam is the polluted river that carries death,

Christ is the living river that carries righteousness and life.

Romans 5 is the story of two sources, two rivers, and two humanities. EVERYONE IS A PART OF ONE OR OTHER. THERE’S NOT A 3RD OPTION

BTW. The question is: From which source are you drinking?

ARE YOU IN ADAM OR IN CHRIST?

And what Paul wants us to see is that while no one is unaffected:

What Jesus accomplished was far superior to what Adam started.

Adam’s sin affected all of us. He’s not merely a moral example. He is the headwaters of a fallen humanity. His act of rebellion does not stay contained. It spreads. It defines the condition of those who come after him.

Romans 5:12 says: “just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned

Paul wants us to see that we are not merely people who commit sins (we do). Rather: We are people born into a broken stream.

Article IX of the Thirty-Nine Articles describes original sin as:

“The fault and corruption of the nature of every man naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam.”

This confronts modern assumptions of self-invention. Scripture says we are not morally neutral. We are born into a humanity already facing death.

It’s By God’s grace, along the way, that we see the truth of this lived out in our own everyday lives - as we honestly see ourselves in light of the holy holy holiness of God. In light of our inability. Our lack of desire to live his way.

That’s the effect of Adam - our inheritance expressing itself through us.

As Genesis tells us God gave incredible freedom and abundance in the Garden of Eden. And drew only one line don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the day in which you eat of it you will surely die.

And Adam deliberately crossed it.

I remember seeing this in one of my kids. We lived on “cut through” street. People used our street to quickly cut through from one busy road to another to save time on their commute and we didn’t have speed bumps to slow them down.

Our children were little - we gave them the abundance of the whole yard to play in - with only 1 condition - don’t go in the street . Don’t cross the curb. I watched one of kids repeatedly find her way to edge of the street. Looking at the curb. Observing the curb. Occasionally glancing over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching her looking at the curb. And then one day - you guessed it — she did it - she deliberately put her toe in the street.

It’s cute and funny - but there’s nothing unique about it.

That’s what ADAM - and Eve did. That’s what we all do because that’s now who we are. Like Adam we do what we want to do - thinking about ourselves.

But the Good news is that Jesus Christ, the Son God, came into the world of his creation. He’s called the second Adam. But as the Nicene creed and our Eucharist liturgy make clear:

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made man.

He doesn’t have Adam’s seed. Or Adams corruption in him.

He didn’t have to come into the world. He didn’t have to come incarnate. He did so because was thinking not thinking of himself. He was thinking of others?

He was thinking of you.

He lived from the delight of the heavenly Father’s love and for the heavenly Father’s glory. He had no sin of his own. He did not trespass. When he died on the cross it wasn’t for himself. It was for others. It was for you. And me. In our place. To undo what Adam did.

I love how CS Lewis captures this in the Lion the Witch and the wardrobe:

Aslan has died on the stone table and he has been raised from the dead. The Great Lion explains to the young girls Lucy and Susan who are marveling at his resurrection what he has done:

“When a willing victim who has committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s place, the Table would crack and death itself would start working backward.”

Adam brought death and condemnation for all. Christ’s obedience has the power to overcome what Adam did. To bring justification and life

Romans 5:18 says: “just as one man’s (Adams) trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s (Jesus) act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. 19 For just as through the one man’s (Adams’s) disobedience the many were made sinners, so through the one man’s (Jesus) obedience the many will be made righteous.”

They both consciously acted in ways that had huge ramifications/huge results.

But they are vastly different results.

Paul wants us to marvel in this: Paul wants us to marvel in GRACE.

V15 says: But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.

V 17: If, because of the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

If you are in Adam, and we are all born in Adam - you’re under the reign of death.

If you are in Christ, you are reborn and you will reign in life. All because Christ’s gift is greater than Adams’ sin.

Twice (5:15, 17) he says, “much more surely.” And that has to do with the abounding gift of grace.

Grace is: "divine love and protection bestowed freely upon mankind".

It’s vitally important that we live in and from the abounding of God. In the much more of grace.

Paul wants us to know that God’s grace and God’s provision for us isn’t random, haphazard or insufficient. According to the Bible, there’s always plenty. There’s always more than enough. There’s an overflow. In fact that’s what the word ADOUND means. An overflowing quantity

We come from Charleston. Our church was on an island. One side was ocean. The other side marsh and the intercostal waterway.

Whenever there was high tide during a super moon. The water would ABOUND. It becomes so full that the water encroaches on yards and creeps over roadways. Downtown Charleston floods because it’s built at sea level and water would fill the streets so that College of Charleston students could be seen kayaking through portions of the city.. That’s what it means to ABOUND.

Paul is saying that God’s grace and provision ABOUND to you through what Jesus has done for you.

Think about what God is like. God is gracious. He is lavish. He is intentional. He is a giver. John 3:16 says, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his Son…”

As Alan Redpath writes,

“When God gives grace, He does not reluctantly open a little finger and maintain a clenched fist full of gifts. God’s hands are nail-pierced hands and they are wide open. This fountain of grace is always pouring itself out with no limitation on heaven’s side at all.” Romans 8:32 says, “Since [God] did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?” (NLT)

You might wonder: To whom does grace ABOUND? The answer is: to the person who needs it most! In Romans 5:20 Paul writes: “But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.” (NKJV)

Grace is needed most where sin exists and when trouble comes. Like a light in a cavern, God’s ABOUNDING grace becomes more brilliant in the midst of darkness.

When I came to Christ in College (when my baptism came alive in me through faith) - I saw my desperate need…..

The Question is will you receive this abounding grace. Will you drink from the stream of Christ?

And if you have - live daily drinking from the abound grace he has for you. From who he has remade you to be in Christ. With all that affords you… And off this to those around you…

Amazing grace story:

15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. 16 And the gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the gift following many trespasses brings justification. 17 If, because of the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

18 Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. 19 For just as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

Ivory Casten 6/14/26 Ivory Casten 6/14/26

Proper 6: Sowing Grace, Harvesting Joy

Readings for June 14

Introduction

Good morning friends. It is so good to be with you this morning. Last week we looked at the calling of St. Matthew and today we are in the same chapter of his gospel. People have been questioning Jesus’ authority to heal people, even wondering if he is something like a spy who works for the devil, or Beelzebub. But he is showing them the power that is coming in the kingdom of God and our Gospel passage summarizes that ministry and shows us how it is going to be passed on down through Jesus’ disciples.

Kids Sermon

As is our new custom over the summer, I want to invite the kids down for our kids’ sermon. [bring a flower not yet in seed and one that is seeding]. How many of you have been growing things at home? What kinds of things are you growing?

This is from our meadow that we have been working on at our house Anyone know what kind of flower this is? That’s right: [whatever the flower is]. What are the differences between these? One’s job is to produce pollen for bees, moths, butterflies, etc. The other one has moved into a different stage where it has gone to seed to spread and make more flowers. [Pull one seed]. How many seeds do you think I’ll get from one flower? Who knows...perhaps 20 or so. Trick question: How many flowers are in one seed? There is no way to answer that question! A seed will fall into the ground and produce another flower, which will produce more seeds, which will produce more flowers, and on and on it goes. It would be possible over a long period of time to fill a field by starting with one flower!

Today’s passage is all about the good news of God’s kingdom being proclaimed to individuals who were looking for God’s king to come. Jesus says this really interesting phrase about “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers” What he means is that God is doing amazing things. He is healing people, their lives are being restored, just like Matthew the Tax Collector. When they are encountering Jesus they are seeing God’s kingdom breaking into their world. People are ready! And he tells them to pray for more people to help with the harvest. The funny thing is....they are an answer to their prayers! They will be ones helping sow the seed and do the harvesting. This is how we follow Jesus. We ask God for help, we look for what Jesus is doing, we give him thanks for it, we share it with others. And then they do the same. And in the church then we start to see the harvest where God’s new creation is coming about and you can look at the church like a field of flowers blooming with the beauties of the kingdom of God. From our lives there goes seed which spreads this goodness to our friends and neighbors that are also longing for Jesus to be king. You and I are part of that story. Before you head back, can you pray with me?

“Dear God...thank you....for loving us...and for Jesus...Who died for us...and rose again...to make all things new. Amen.”

1) 9:35-38 Compassion motivated his kingdom ministry (in the face of evil shepherds who accused him of working as an agent of Satan).

Where are we in Jesus’ story? Last week, Jesus had invited Matthew, the tax collector to follow him. He would go on to heal people of their diseases and the demons that afflicted them. All of these are tangible signs that God’s kingdom was breaking into the present evil age. These were the signs prophesied about what the Messiah would do from the Old Testament.

In his summary of Jesus’ ministry, St. Matthew takes time to note that Jesus saw the crowds, and had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. There are passages of the Old Testament that condemn Judah’s leadership for being bad shepherds. I’m thinking specifically of Ezekiel 34 where the leaders are compared to shepherds who completely neglect their flock and as a result, the sheep are scattered and injured and no one is there to care for them. God promised to remove those shepherds and then to personally be a shepherd to his people, seeking out the sheep, bringing them back, binding their wounds, and leading them to pasture.[1] In this Gospel passage, I think St. Matthew means for this to be a veiled critique of Judah’s spiritual leaders, and I think he means to underscore the ways that Jesus is doing what God promised He would do.

Jesus’ ministry begins with God’s compassion, and the best ministry happens when that continues to be the lens through which we see others. A long time ago I’d been a supervisor in a coffee shop and remember being so annoyed that one of the employees would come in late for her shift every time. There was never an explanation; it was just normal for her. After months of this she revealed some things about her mom that demonstrated that she was essentially dealing with an incredibly dysfunctional household and then as a result, she had to shuttle her little sister to various places. I had to repent of my misrepresentation of her and my lack of compassion. It’s these little moments that remind us that the people around us, no matter how put together they might look, are still wandering and helpless like sheep with no shepherd. There are people who annoy us, perhaps even anger us, but can we be moved to a place of compassion for them? Having compassion is the first step in joining the harvest that Jesus talks about.

2) 10:1-4 Jesus invites the disciples/apostles into the ministry of compassionate healing

Jesus tells the disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest and that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.[2] The way this is followed by the next chapter suggests that the disciples themselves become the answer to this prayer...and of course anyone after them. Jesus summons the 12 and gives them authority to carry on this ministry. St. Matthew then lists out the twelves disciples. This authority, through the apostles, is also given to the church to carry on this mission.

This is the first time in this gospel that the disciples are also called apostles. We use that word and we don’t often know what it means. It means, “Sent ones”. The good news of the kingdom of heaven was a message to be announced. It was being announced by Jesus with preaching and miracles and now Jesus is sending out the twelve in the continuation of this work.

Bishops continue the apostolic office and remind us all of our own part of the apostolic call. They carry on in the tradition that is passed down from the 12 sent ones through those they sent, down today to the bishops of the church. When a Bishop is consecrated, one of the things we pray over him is this: “Grant to this your servant such grace that he may ever be ready to spread abroad your Gospel, the glad tidings of reconciliation with you, and to use the authority given to him, not for destruction, but for salvation; not to hurt, but to help; so that, as a wise and faithful steward, he may give to your family their portion in due season, and at the last may be received into everlasting joy, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This feels very similar to what Jesus is asking of his disciples. While we don’t all hold the apostolic office, we do all carry on the apostolic mission of being bearers of the kingdom work and message. Like I mentioned to the kids earlier: We ask God for help, we look for what Jesus is doing, we give him thanks for it, we share it with others.

This has been lived out in different ways in different times. One of my favorite examples from our Anglican heritage is in the Celtic spiritual heritage. Between the 4th and 7th centuries, the common way of doing ministry is that a Bishop would go to a place and evangelize, bring some monks and nuns with him, set up a monastery and churches for a robust life of prayer, leave the administration of it all under the care of an abbot or abbess and then move on. The landscape was dotted with monasteries and churches that engaged in a robust prayer and monastic life even as the Bishop created front porches of entry through hospitality and care for people to encounter Jesus in new cities and towns. Then the process repeats. Bishops were trailblazers and the abbots and abbesses functioned like our bishops do today.

This is why I love church planting so much. It feels apostolic. We started a church to create a thin place where heaven meets earth, where new creation is coming about through a robust communal and sacramental life of prayer, to then engage in mission as we create front porches of hospitality for people to discover Jesus. Our various ministries give us spaces to build rhythms of hospitality, prayer, relationship-building, and service. Our community events cultivate an imagination for hospitality and welcome as we have cookouts, go to baseball games, have coffee, do stories in the park, have fun at the skatepark, and however else we think to gather and make space for friendship. Every person here has people they know who long for Jesus’ compassion, even if they couldn’t articulate it yet. We should hold them in prayer with compassion, look for ways to invite them into life with Jesus, and let the church’s rhythms of prayer and community shape our lives for what kingdom-minded harvest looks like where live, work, and play.

Conclusion

We have seen Jesus’ compassion as the motivation for his kingdom proclamation. He shares this ministry with his disciples who are sent as messengers of this kingdom. They aren’t in it for wealth, ease, or fame. They are ambassadors of renewal who keep their eyes open for those ready to hear this message. We share in this apostolic ministry, looking for the Spirit’s work of new creation, practicing it in the church, for the good of the world. As we say goodbye to some dear friends today, I’m so grateful for the ways they’ve made this church what it is. One of my prayers is that as a church, for as long as we have an individual or a household, that this would be a resting-place of grace for their journey, where people experience the goodness of the kingdom to be sent out more healed by Jesus than when they arrived. As long as we are here together, there is always more work to do. We are looking for the Spirit’s work, harvesting where He has sown seeds that have matured, finding those ready to receive the message and power of God’s kingdom and the reign of Christ. As we walk faithfully with the Lord, and name his work for others along the way, we do not know the lives we’ll impact along the way.

Let us pray:

O God, our heavenly Father, you manifested your love by sending your only-begotten Son into the world, that all might live through him: Pour out your Spirit on your Church, that we may fulfill his command to preach the Gospel to all people. Send forth laborers into your harvest; defend them in all dangers and temptations; and hasten the time when the fullness of the Gentiles shall be gathered in, and faithful Israel shall be saved; through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1] Ezekiel 34:1-16.

[2] Matthew 9:37-38.

Ivory Casten 6/7/26 Ivory Casten 6/7/26

Proper 5: Substantive Discipleship Involves Risk

Readings for June 7

Introduction

Good morning dear friends. It is so wonderful to see you this morning. Today’s Gospel passage and the passages in Hosea and the Psalms have a lot to do with getting our priorities straight as we follow the Lord. As we think about this text and what God is teaching us through it, I want to begin by inviting the kids down.

Kids sermon

How many of you like cookies? What are your favorite kinds? There was one night where Ashley and I really wanted to have cookies for dessert, but we had to use the few ingredients we had in the cupboard. I looked online for help with recipes and I discovered a peanut butter cookie that only uses 4 ingredients. Because there are only four ingredients, each one is super important. Cole, do you remember what we call them? ...Dad’s super fast peanut butter cookies. It takes one cup of peanut butter, one cup of sugar, one egg, and a bit of vanilla extract. Then you stir it all together, ball it up on some baking sheets, use a fork to flatten them out, and bake them at 350 for about 9 or 10 minutes.

They are not healthy by any means, but they are delicious. There are certainly more complex cookies with a lot of additional ingredients that are not necessary, but in this cookie, three of the four ingredients are absolutely necessary. If you forget the vanilla extract, they’ll taste fine, but they’ll taste like something is missing. if you forget the peanut butter then you’re just eating sugar and eggs. If you forget the egg, the cookie won’t bind together. If you forget the sugar, it won’t taste good at all. When we are cooking or baking, there are some necessary ingredients we really cannot skip out on without doing irreparable harm to what we’re trying to make.

Today in our passages, we are hearing some different ingredients of Old Testament discipleship being put together: sacrificing animals, keeping the law, rules about keeping someone clean, and who to avoid. Some of them are more important than others. Jesus meets some people who were worried more about the less-important ingredients than about the main ingredients that are involved in following the Lord. Jesus wants to help them put their priorities straight. These texts were recorded for us so that we learn how to love God, love our neighbors, and invite them into his love. Jesus is helping us prioritize what is most important. As we look at our text together, will you pray with me? “Dear God...thank you...for teaching us...how to follow you...and for giving us...the Holy Spirit...to become more like you...Amen.” Thank you. Head on back to your seats.

I. Jesus sees need rather than failure and offers healing rather than quarantining himself.

In St. Matthew’s Gospel reading today, Jesus is walking along in Capernaum and sees a man sitting at the tax booth named Matthew. Matthew would have been one of those who was hired out to collect various taxes that were levied by Herod Antipas on goods carried through the town and goods that were traded. He would have been working with a group in this booth. The fact that “tax collectors” is paired with sinners shows you how these folks are seen. A foreign oppressor was taxing the Jewish people on their goods, serving as a reminder that they were not free, but under the subjugation of an enemy. Tax collectors were seen as part of the system of oppression and a Jewish tax collector is then seen as a traitor to his people. And this is where Matthew ends up in his life. I doubt he is proud of it, but this is how he has made his living. His home, its furnishings, even down to the utensils he would use to host Jesus, were funded by the taxation of God’s people.

This was someone the religious culture saw as undesirable and someone to keep at arm’s length. And yet where the Pharisees saw a failure, Jesus saw someone in need. This is the one Jesus saw, one whom God loves, and in whom God’s glory would be made known as his life became transformed and he was put into communion with other followers of Jesus—like Simon the Zealot, who was part of a group that militantly opposed paying Roman taxes.

Jesus risks his reputation to heal people and bring them into the kingdom of God. We would do well to remind ourselves that we are people in need. We are in need of friendship, of salvation from our disordered attachments, healing from our coping strategies, healing from the ways we react out of our own hurt, healing from the ways that we walk away from God’s will for what is best for us. We are needy people whom Jesus longs to heal.

As we follow Jesus and experience healing, we become, like Henri Nouwen talks about, wounded healers. We should err on the side of wanting to see others changed by Jesus and not err on the side of what others might think of us. This doesn’t mean we capitulate to someone’s sin, or even accept it as good, but neither do we need to hold every person at arms length who doesn’t align with our faith. It is incumbent on us to remember that no one is outside the reach of the grace of God. As we think of those we rub shoulders with, whose sin makes us tense up and avoidant — why? Of course be wise and safe, but begin to pray about how this person might be in need of the love of God as we ourselves are. Rather than asking “what will people think of me if I associate with this person?” begin to ask, “what does this person need from the Lord and how can I care for them in that need?” We are still confident, pursuing holiness, differentiated, but also compassionately pursuing what is good for another image-bearer.

II. Jesus allows the guiding principles of the law to govern its application rather than being hung up on external false flags of piety.

Jesus sees a need where others see failure. In the latter part of our Gospel passage, he gets to a guiding principle. Being transformed by God’s love to then share it with others is the key ingredient of discipleship; if we miss this, discipleship becomes obscured — and potentially legalistic. C.S. Lewis talks about priorities in discipleship. He says, “I read in a religious paper, “Nothing is more important than to teach children to use the sign of the cross.” Nothing? Not compassion, nor veracity, nor justice? Voilà l’ennemi.”[1]

There are certainly times to stand at arms length from people we disagree with because they are potentially harmful, or we’re not differentiated enough not to get sucked into their sin, or because we need to put up a boundary to keep ourselves physically or emotionally safe. Some of those exceptions aside, a defensive posture that makes people less human and keeps them at an arm’s distance should not be a guiding principle in the pursuit of holiness. If someone disagrees with us, it is an opportunity for us — and for our kids—to have great, age-appropriate conversations. It is an opportunity to come with curiosity an notice someone’s need.

Kids, when you go to the doctor with a horrible cough, and you’re still contagious, the doctor will mask up and get in the room with you to run tests, help figure out what is going on, and help you get better. There is some risk in being a physician, but to risk is the only way to heal. Rather than asking “What will happen if that sinner gets near me” Jesus says “What might happen if their life of brokenness is given back to them as a story of redemption?”

Jesus uses a rabbinic phrase with the Pharisees when he says “Go and learn what this means...” Then he quotes Hosea 6:6. In Hosea, the prophet is warning the Northern Kingdom of Israel of the ways they have strayed from the Lord to then call out the southern kingdom for the same. The quote says “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. The quotation as its recorded matches perfectly the Greek version of the Old Testament. The word “mercy” is one you’re probably familiar with ἔλεος as in when we say “Kyrie eleison...” We usually mean something like compassion. But this word is translating Hebrew word חֶ֥סֶד, which has less to do with compassion and more to do with covenant love and faithfulness. We often translate it lovingkindness, which is true if by that we mean the lovingkindness connected with faithfulness to God’s covenant with his people. God’s desire is that Israel and Judah would love obedience to Him and when they make a wrong turn, to turn back in repentance, to throw themselves onto the grace of God which he longs to meet them with. God desires a deep relationship of love and trust, not merely some sacrifices. He is not some Pagan god that needs to be fed by human beings through their offerings.

So with St. Matthew, God’s desire is for those who have strayed to come and find life in him. One can obey the Sabbath religiously, hold all the feast days, sacrifice the best offerings; and for us— have all the kids in Sunday school remember to bring their bibles, hold the most church programs, do all the family prayer times, do all the daily bible readings, memorize all the Scriptures we can, but if the result is a defensive faith that culminates in tokens of piety without the substance of real life change that produces a desire for the love of God for ourselves and others, then we have missed the guiding principle of Jesus. We don’t want a faith that only keeps us safe, we want a faith that makes us holy.

Conclusion

The faith that makes us holy risks something because it enters the messiness of life with God with others. Worshiping together forms us to go into the world to love and serve the Lord; it doesn’t form us to perform the liturgy better. To love the Lord our God and our neighbor as ourselves, as we say each week, becomes the guiding principle in following Jesus. Without this key ingredient, we miss the result of discipleship, which is Christ being formed in us. A good and right faith prioritizes what is most important in a life of discipleship and produces what is ultimately good in us and others — whether we call this the virtues or the fruit of the spirit. This is where God’s kingdom comes. If we miss this, the external badges of piety won’t mean much. Let’s join Jesus in noticing others’ needs rather than their failures, inviting them into God’s transformative love, and to make Jesus’ transformative love become our guiding principle in living out a life of discipleship.

Let us pray:

Gracious God and most merciful Father, you have granted us the rich and precious jewel of your holy Word: Assist us with your Spirit, that the same Word may be written in our hearts to our everlasting comfort, to reform us, to renew us according to your own image, to build us up and edify us into the perfect dwelling place of your Christ, sanctifying and increasing in us all heavenly virtues; grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

[1] C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, Letter 6.

SERMONS

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