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Deafness and the corruption of speech are not defects that fell on one, or some. They are the result of the hereditary disease, inherited by every child begotten of man and born of woman, carried down the ages, to your own ears and mouth, here in this park this morning. For you have your own instances of the same deafness and muteness. After all, this is not just an account told once about a healing long ago. When did you last hear His word and turn a deaf ear to it? Was it

“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Beloved, that verdict does not stop with him. It falls on you. Your own thanks, veiling your judgment of others, prayed before either man opened his mouth, He hears. Your own smirk, the one you think no one saw, He sees. Yet hear what going down means before anything else follows. And you He made alive, who

Weeping. Rejection. The Cross. All that sounds more fitting for Holy Week, rather than for some ordinary summer Sunday. And so you might wonder, then, why you’re hearing an account like this now, rather than then, or even, perhaps, nearer the end of the Church year. Well, there’s a reason for it: some portions of the Church year are bound to actual historical time, and this is one of them. The destruction of Jerusalem’s temple, and of Jerusalem itself, in A.D. 70, which Jesus

The unjust steward doesn’t merely hand back paid bills, no; rather, he changes them. And the master commends him for such shrewd dealings. What’s that all about? Here’s what I hear: the steward is the pastor. For indeed, every preacher Christ has ever sent has been exactly this: unjust, squandering what’s entrusted to him, still bound for the same exit as the rest of mankind. O, vanity of vanities, indeed! I, and all those whom Christ has called and ordained to stand in His s

A false preacher or teacher never professes to be a deceiver; they claim to come in the Lord’s name, to preach and teach the Lord’s words. They do not appear as a manifest wolf; they come as a wolf in sheep’s clothing: they will look and act like a sheep. How, then, do you know a false prophet, a false teacher? Not by their works, their success, or their charisma; rather, by their fruit. A prophet’s fruit, a teacher’s fruit, is their preaching and teaching: what they say abou

“I have compassion.” Those words sound forth despite the weariness, despite indifference. “I have compassion,” Jesus says, not as a conclusion to three days’ worth of teaching; no, rather, because of it, and as remedy to it. “I have compassion,” says He, using the same word He has always used of Himself, and asks only what is on hand. “Seven [loaves],” comes the answer, and a few small fish besides. Nothing really, set against three days, let alone a lifetime. Regardless, He

Outward righteousness, righteousness that compares one against another, righteousness such as that of the scribes and Pharisees could not enter the kingdom of heaven then, and it cannot enter now. Yet beware overcorrecting; beware of caring nothing for the Law. “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,” Jesus says. He does not say, “Unless your righteousness comes in below that of the scribes and Pharisees.” Such is the danger when, he

On his knees, in front of his partners, Simon is a truer picture of you than you would care to admit: no longer as one with a fine catch and a decent reputation, standing on his own two strong legs, sure of himself and needing no one; rather, as one on his knees, face down in the bottom of the boat, only now realizing Who has been standing this close to him all along, and therefore cannot for his life think of one reason the Lord should remain. Weigh your own heart against wh

Behold the speck and the plank. You see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, and you see it well; you have measured it to the grain. Yet there is a plank in your own eye. You have not seen it, cannot see it; you are blind to it even as you reach for their speck. You are the blind one who would lead the blind, and the ditch is where you are both bound. First remove the plank from your own eye. Go on, take it out. You can’t. The measure comes back full, pressed down against you, a

God does not brighten the old worn face; there is no face left to brighten. Rather, He strikes His emblem upon you. At the Font His Name was spoken over you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the sign of the holy Cross was traced upon your forehead and upon your heart, the King’s own mark come down upon the silver. It is not the face lost in Adam; it is the Cross of Christ, the sign that you are His: bought, claimed, and current again in the kingdom. The emblem is struck, the