A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. But he said to them, “The kings of the gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather, the greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.

Luke 22:24-27

Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. We have renounced the shameful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing clearly the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’s sake. For it is the God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:1-6

the sermon

Note: The video stream started late. Therefore, I’ll start with the text that precedes where the video starts, and then the video shows below where it picks up. So read the beginning, and then watch the rest from there so that it all makes sense.

Our Gospel reading starts off in an interesting way. It says,

“A dispute also arose among them…”

Okay, so there’s a disagreement. That happens.

But it says, also. A dispute also arose among them.

So I want to look back for a second to see what else is going on here.

Let me set the scene. It’s the last night before Jesus’s crucifixion. He and His disciples are having dinner together, and He institutes the Lord’s Supper.

Taking the bread and wine, He tells them, This is my body… this is my blood… given for you… do this in remembrance of me. We still celebrate this today as one of our most sacred sacraments of the Christian faith.

Then… Jesus immediately tells them that one of them is about to betray Him, saying,

“the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table”

And that’s when the talk starts happening. 

They start asking one another which of them it could be who would do such a thing. 

Certainly not me! Is it you? Maybe it’s Matthew… look at him over there with that smug look on his face. I mean, can you ever really trust a tax collector?

Then, in the same breath, they turn around and lean into this dispute about which of them is the greatest! 

They literally go from, who could do such a thing, to well, I know it’s not me because I’ve done the most to help this team. I think I might be Jesus’s favorite.

We’d never do that, would we? Except that we do it all the time.

The Scoreboard at the Table

Check this out. The word that Luke uses for dispute here isn’t about a simple disagreement. It has this sense of quarreling associated with a love of winning. Make no mistake. This is a straight up competition.

And notice that it doesn’t say that they’re arguing over which of them is the greatest, but which is regarded as the greatest. This whole thing is about who is seen as being the best.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time they’ve had this same argument. In Luke 9:46 we see them doing the same thing, and Jesus sets a child beside him. They still haven’t gotten it!

And honestly, neither have we. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book Life Together, talks about this argument over greatness…

He basically says that this argument starts the moment Christians gather together. It’s just something that’s built into community life, and it has to be faced.

So Jesus says to them, 

“The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them;”

Jesus says it plainly: the world’s way of being great is power over people. And He continues,

“Those in authority over them are called benefactors.”

This is an official title of status, usually given to wealthy patrons. It’s a status of being the one whose name is going to be on the building. And at the table, it’s the one who gets the seat of honor.

The problem isn’t helping people. It’s helping people to rank above them.

Today, we keep scorecards too. We may say things like, after all I’ve done for you. Statements like that turn kindness into receipts. 

We keep score on social media too, always quietly checking follower counts and the likes on everything we post.

Some of us may just have an inner scoreboard, quietly comparing in our heads. Who’s doing better, who’s further along, who God probably likes more. This is where status anxiety lives, and it tears us up from the inside.

But what if our worth isn’t something we win at this Table, but something we’re given at it?

Listen to what Jesus says, because it’s four words that change everything.

“Not so with you.”

The Host Who Serves

I’m going to say that again. Not so with you.

When Jesus says this, He’s not trying to teach them a better way to win than the kings. He shifts it completely. We’re not even playing that game at all!

He leans into this more by saying,

“Rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest.”

In their world, age meant honor. And it was always the youngest who got the jobs nobody wanted. The heavy lifting. The dirty work.

Jesus continues,

“And the leader like the one who serves.”

Listen, Jesus doesn’t abolish leadership. But He does redefine what leading looks like.

Then He asks them a question: 

“For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table?”

Well, of course it is. Everybody knows that.

This is where Jesus flips everything over on its head and says,

“But I am among you as one who serves.”

Remember, Jesus is the host of this meal. He has every right to the place of honor. And instead, He takes the servant’s place. When John tells the story of this same night, he describes Jesus wrapping a towel around His waist, getting down on the floor, and washing His disciples’ feet.

In Jesus’ statement, the Greek here is ho diakonōn, the one who serves. This is where we get our English word “deacon.” And Jesus uses it to describe Himself.

And notice how He says it: I am among you (as one who serves). In your midst. Not from some heavenly place above or at a safe distance. Jesus serves from right in the middle of the community, as the one sent by the Father into it.

Jesus, by His life and example, is the first and true Deacon. 

The early church understood this. Ignatius of Antioch, one of the earliest bishops whose letters we still have, told the churches to honor their deacons the way they’d honor Jesus Himself. Not because deacons are important people, but because when a deacon serves, the church gets to see what Jesus looks like when He serves.

Deacons like Dennis and me and so many others, like Jesus, are sent into our communities to serve on behalf of the One who sent us.

And the beautiful thing about being sent is that we never stand alone. We always have the One who sent us.

Now, if you think this fight over greatness was just a problem for twelve men two thousand years ago, Paul would like to have a word.

Same Contest, Different Costume

Picture a place that’s wealthy, ambitious, and very concerned with image. People pick their favorite speakers and follow them. The most polished ones draw crowds and charge for their wisdom. New teachers show up with glowing endorsements. 

And one minister keeps getting bad reviews. People say his letters are impressive, but in person he’s weak, and his speaking? Not much to listen to. 

That place is the city of Corinth.
And that minister is Paul.

In our reading from 2 Corinthians, Paul is answering the question hanging over that whole city: what makes a minister trustworthy?

His answer starts with:

“It is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry.”

That word “ministry” is diakonia. Yep, it’s from the same family of diakon- words we just heard Jesus use in the Gospel.

Paul doesn’t come with endorsements. His only credential is that he’s been shown mercy. He didn’t earn this ministry. He received it.

And unlike the polished speakers, he doesn’t use cunning or twist God’s word. No show. No sales pitch. Just, in his words, “the open statement of the truth.”

For Paul, how the gospel is shared is part of the gospel.

And then he says:

“For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.”

Paul is differentiating himself from the hot, popular preachers out for self gain by saying that it’s not about him, but about pointing to the One who sent him. 

So, if the minister isn’t the point, what is he?

Windows, Not the Light

Paul answers when he says:

“For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

The light Paul speaks of isn’t generated by the minister. It’s given. The minister is like a window. A window doesn’t make light. It lets light shine through.

In the 17th century, the Anglican priest and poet George Herbert wrote a poem called “The Windows.” It begins:

Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?
He is a brittle crazy glass:
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace.

In Herbert’s day, “crazy” meant cracked or flawed. And Herbert goes on later in this poem to imagine God firing His own story into that glass, like stained glass, so that the light shines through the minister’s life. And he says it’s when our words and our lives come together that people are truly moved. Words alone just ring in the ear.

What an amazing picture. Cracked, imperfect glass, colored by our own lives, with the Light shining through it. That preaches more than words alone could ever do.

And here’s the beautiful thing. Every baptized Christian carries this light. When Paul said God, “has shone in our hearts,” he’s not talking only about the apostles. Each one of us has received the light of Christ.

You don’t have to be impressive to be a window. You only have to let the light through.

And a window has two sides: one facing in, and one facing out.

From the Table into the World

That’s what a deacon is. We’ve got one foot in the church and one foot in the world. We’re a bridge. The deacon brings the world into the church (think of the Prayers of the People), and leads the church out into the world.

In a bit, after Dennis sets this Table and we receive Communion, he’ll do one of my favorite things to do as a deacon: the dismissal.

It might sound like an odd favorite, but it means so much more than “it’s time to go.” It’s an invitation to follow. It’s as if the deacon is saying:

You’ve just heard the Word of God. You’ve been reconciled to Him and to each other. You’ve received Holy Communion with Him through the body and blood of Christ. Now, come on. Follow me, and let’s take this out there into the world!

As we celebrate Dennis’s new ministry, let us remember something. He isn’t here to do your serving for you. He’s here to lead you into it.

The ministry we’re celebrating today really belongs to all of us.

And that brings me to my friend.

Closing: A Word to the New Deacon

Dennis, at your ordination, the bishop charged you, “to make Christ and his redemptive love known, by your word and example, to those among whom you live, and work, and worship.”

I’ve watched you over the last few years serve Him well. I’ve seen you pursue a stronger, deeper understanding of God. I’ve watched you wrestle with calling and purpose. And you’ve done it all faithfully.

So hear this, my friend.

You’re not in the contest anymore.
You’re sent.
You don’t have to be the light.
You get to be the window.
And you’ll never stand alone.
You’ll always have the One who sent you.

And for the rest of us, in a little while, Dennis is going to stand up and say, “Let us go forth in the name of Christ!” When he does, let’s follow his lead. Amen.

When Carol opened the call, she pointed out the three words that have shaped this blog for years… read. pray. serve. And she said that if that doesn’t speak to Daughters, she doesn’t know what does. The Daughters live by a Rule of Prayer and a Rule of Service, with a mission of prayer, service, and evangelism. So it felt like we’d been speaking the same language all along.

And I’m no stranger to the Daughters, at least in the Diocese of Central Florida. I’ve had the opportunity to speak at a Daughters’ Deanery meeting and at one of their diocese retreats.

Carol opened with a line from Holy Rhythms for Hurting Hearts that set the tone for the whole conversation: “Healing rarely happens all at once. But it does come, one sacred rhythm at a time.”

You can watch the full conversation below. And below that, I’ve pulled together some highlights from what we talked about, along with a few extra thoughts I didn’t make it onto the call.

from charismatic roots to the Episcopal Church

02:21

Carol started by asking me to introduce myself, and I admitted something right up front. I still consider myself a little newer to the Episcopal Church. I grew up in a very non-denominational, independent, charismatic kind of church.

My best friend and I always talked about doing ministry together. We even talked about planting a church at one point. Then he went off and became an Episcopal priest, which made some waves back in those old circles. When he landed in Mount Dora, he kept after me… “Hey, when are you going to move the family up and do ministry with me?”

So a little over five years ago, we did. I started doing youth ministry at St. Edward’s Episcopal Church in Mount Dora, just north of Orlando, and I’ve been there ever since. The more I got in, the more I fell in love with the traditions, the sacredness, and the meaning behind every little thing we do in the liturgy. That led me to pursue ordination, and next month I’ll mark two years as a deacon in the Diocese of Central Florida.

what 2020 taught me about worship

The real turning point came in a crazy year. 2020, anyone?

With COVID, racial tensions, and politics swirling everywhere, my wife and I would go to church and think, “I just want to go get some Jesus.” But in a very emotionally driven church, everything going on in society bleeds right into everything, and you hear everybody’s opinion about it.

Then we’d visit our friends for a weekend and go to church with them. And what would we hear? Readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the New Testament, and a Gospel. Then a sermon based on those readings.

I felt like we got more Jesus in 75 minutes of worship there than I did in the last six months at my church back home.

I started studying to understand what was going on. It wasn’t just the readings or my friend’s sermons. As I dug in, I realized how intentional every single element of the liturgy is. And the more I learned, the more I fell in love with it.

I also want to be clear about something I said on the call. When I talk about my past church experience, I’m not trying to bash anything. It just filters and frames how I’ve seen and experienced things.

bonus thoughts

One thing I’ve come to appreciate about my whole church journey is how much beauty there is in the diversity of worship styles. The charismatic (or Pentecostal) churches I was used to leaned heavily on being in touch with the Holy Spirit. And that experience has served me well in the Episcopal Church too. I see the Spirit moving in so many beautiful ways, especially in how our youth worship and pray.

In my youth ministry role, I’ve had the chance to connect with youth ministers in our area from a wide variety of denominations and backgrounds. And they’re all amazing! I feel at home in the Episcopal and Anglican tradition. It brings a richness and balance I’d love for more people to experience. But wherever you call home, I’d encourage you to step outside your own tradition every once in a while. Grab coffee or do a Bible study with friends who go to another church. See how they pray and how they relate to the Word. You’ll likely find it’s mutually beneficial. Let iron sharpen iron (Proverbs 27:17).

a resource and a catalyst

08:15

I get really geeked up about our youth at St. Edward’s. They’re so hungry for the Word, for connecting in prayer, and for learning about their traditions. When I asked them what they wanted to study, they said, “Hey, can you take us in the sanctuary and slow the liturgy down and explain things to us?”

That hunger is part of how I came to know the Daughters. I meet about once a month with other youth ministers around our diocese, and through those connections I started learning about Junior Daughters. I thought, wow, I may have some young ladies who’d be interested in that. We now have a new Daughters chapter starting at St. Edward’s, and Junior Daughters may be a natural next step. Carol also shared about Gen Zoom, a new ministry for Gen Z and Millennial Daughters.

Carol asked how I see the role of clergy when working with groups like the Daughters or a youth group. I said I like to think of myself first as a resource. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the most educated theological scholar. But I can find answers to questions. And I can be there to pray and support.

More than that, though, I like to think of myself as a catalyst. My youth didn’t come up with the idea of studying the liturgy all on their own. I plant some seeds every once in a while and see how I can stir up the Spirit in them to be hungry and go deeper.

It’s like my own kids at home. They’ll say they’re hungry, look around, decide there’s nothing to eat, and settle for a peanut butter sandwich. Meanwhile, there’s a casserole left over from last night that was just delicious. Peanut butter sandwiches have their place. But it’s also good to sit down to a full meal.

Carol picked up on something I hadn’t quite said out loud. I have no problem saying, “I don’t know, let’s find out together.” She called those some of the most holy words. I think she’s right.

bonus thoughts

Slowing down the liturgy with our youth was beautiful! It gave us space to stop, think, and talk about what’s happening and why it matters. We talked about that thing people do with their thumb on their forehead, lips, and chest at the start of the Gospel reading (and whether everyone is supposed to do it or not). We talked about where the practice of preaching from the readings comes from. And we talked about why the peace isn’t just a social moment in the middle of the service, because it carries some real theological weight.

In the end, it brought a deeper understanding to everything we do, from the moment we walk in the doors through the dismissal (and beyond). And that understanding makes it all more meaningful when we pray the liturgy in real time on Sunday mornings. Those conversations became a seven-session study called Lift Up Your Hearts: A Step-by-Step Journey Through the Eucharist.

Letting people lead with their own questions is such an important part of learning. I can teach what I think they need to know. But the things they’re curious about end up connecting them to the real depth. When I do Bible study with our youth, the most important thing to me is teaching them how to study the Scriptures, then letting them dig in with their own questions, perspectives, and life experiences. That’s what makes the Scriptures come alive for them. And it has far more staying power than me just telling them what to think about what the Bible says. (If you want to learn that process yourself, check out my guide to studying the Bible.)

confession is a “we” thing

15:47

In my old church, it wasn’t unusual to sing for an hour, then hear an hour of sermon on whatever topic the pastor chose. We could be there for two and a half hours. Carol mentioned something I wrote about in Holy Rhythms for Hurting Hearts… the pressure to perform. The pressure to always be happy and joyful and tell everyone that God is doing great things in your life. That can get overwhelming.

One of the beautiful things I’ve found in the liturgy is confession. Every Sunday morning, we confess together. And here’s what’s amazing about it. We don’t say, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done.” We say we’re sorry. We’ve fallen short.

I can look at the person next to me and know that, listen, I’m not alone. Even if I’ve fallen short in some way this week, so have they. And we’re in this together.

We’re both there together, approaching God and asking for forgiveness and help to get through. It’s a community thing, not just an individual experience. I think a lot of the Church misses that, because faith can become a very individual experience. But if we pay attention, the liturgy has that nailed pretty good.

bonus thoughts

Honestly, this one hits me every week now. Ever since I started paying attention to the fact that confession is something we do together, I can’t unsee it.

I think it pushes right back against our very Western culture of individualism, which puts so much pressure on each of us to carry everything on our own. Saying “we” every Sunday gets me looking beyond my own circumstances, and not just during confession. It reminds me in so many areas of life that we’re all part of a greater community together.

But here’s the bigger shift for me. In the confession, we say, “We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” That’s not just a room full of individuals each admitting we’ve fallen short and should do better. It’s the church, as a whole, admitting that we haven’t loved our neighbors well.

So that line has become a question I carry out the doors with me. How can our church, together, show up and love our neighbors? How can we be a blessing to our community? Like I wrote in Holy Rhythms for Hurting Hearts, it’s not about guilt. It’s about guidance. The confession doesn’t leave us stuck in what we got wrong. It points us toward who we’re called to be together. And it’s no accident that the service ends by sending us out to love and serve the Lord.

That’s what the “we” does. It helps us know we’re not alone in our struggles. And it gives us a collective identity and purpose. We fall short together, we’re forgiven together, and we’re sent out together to love the people around us.

the liturgy is the heartbeat of God

17:54

One of the Daughters on the call had read the book and invited me to keynote a diocesan Daughters retreat last spring. She asked me to talk about what struck her most… the idea of the liturgy becoming a heartbeat.

Coming from my background, it was easy to think the liturgy was just routine. The same prayers, the same words, every week. But I started to realize something is happening on a couple of levels.

First, there’s the service itself. Yes, it’s routine. But it’s rhythmic. We’re invited into God’s presence at the beginning. We hear the Word, and we hear about the Word. We confess. We pray the prayers of the people. We share the peace. It becomes a rhythm where I can almost feel it… bump bump, bump bump.

Then there’s the bigger rhythm of the whole year. The liturgical new year starts in Advent. Advent brings a certain feeling, and it leads into Christmas, then Epiphany, then ordinary time. Then Ash Wednesday, all of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. Then we move through the season after Pentecost… and then we start all over again.

I think back to my old church. We’d go from Palm Sunday… “Hosanna!”… straight to Easter Sunday… “He is risen!” And we’d miss the whole roller coaster of everything in between.

I once walked our youth through the Advent prayers, digging deep into the scriptures behind them. When we finished, I asked what they thought. They told me they finally understood the reason for the season. And they didn’t mean Christmas. They meant Advent, and that’s different. They start seeing (and feeling) the heartbeat.

It’s not like a heartbeat. It is a heartbeat. It’s the heartbeat of God.

That’s where the idea for Holy Rhythms for Hurting Hearts came from. It’s those rhythms and cycles that keep bringing us to the places we need to be. A few folks in the chat put it beautifully… it’s rhythmic, it’s comforting, and it makes order out of chaos.

bonus thoughts

I don’t know that I have one favorite Advent collect. But I love slowing down and really diving into them. When we did this with our youth, we studied each prayer the same way we dig into the Scriptures in our Bible studies… slowly and methodically. We paid close attention to each word and what it means. We reflected on what the prayer is trying to say, and then what it means for us.

It’s easy to read a prayer like that and think, “Oh, that’s beautiful.” It’s something else to walk away thinking, “This means something to me.”

And here’s what we usually find in those Advent prayers. The rest of our culture is running a million miles an hour with all the shopping, parties, travel, and preparations, which can bring a lot of stress and anxiety. But there’s something about Advent that’s about slowing down, being reflective, and looking toward something… the coming of the Savior we need.

Our youth came up with some incredible insights along the way. Like noticing that in the first Sunday’s collect, light defeats darkness not through some struggle or fight, but simply by existing. Or that when we ask Christ to find “a mansion prepared for himself” in us, that’s a mansion… not a little 2/1 condo. He wants all of us. (I wrote about the whole Advent prayers study here.)

They loved studying those Advent collects so much that they asked to do the same thing for Lent. That’s another season where those prayers can be extremely powerful. (Here’s the Lenten prayers study too.)

So here’s my invitation this Advent. Each week, take that Sunday’s collect (you’ll find them starting on page 211 of the Book of Common Prayer) and sit with it slowly:

• Read it a few times, out loud if you can.
• Pay attention to each word. What is it saying?
• Reflect on what the prayer is asking of God, and what it’s asking of you.
• Ask what it means for your life this week.

Pray it every day that week, and let it slow you down while everything else speeds up. That’s the rhythm Advent invites us into.

a rule of life starts small

24:00

One of the Daughters shared how much the rule of life ideas in my book resonated with her, especially the way I look back to St. Benedict and the sixth century. Daughters already have a rule of life built around prayer, service, and evangelism. She wanted to hear more about how I approach it.

I’m not one for saying you have to have this, and this, and this. I love how the Daughters have some of that built into their core identity. But when I talk with our youth or other parishioners about a rule of life, my advice is simple… just find something. Grab something and start.

If you’re not reading the Bible, start reading it. Or read a book about the Bible or about God. Spend some time in prayer. Find something easy that you can do on a regular basis, and then build on that.

why I built The Rhythm

During my discernment process for ordination, I really got into the practice of Morning and Evening Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer. But some of those liturgies can take a while. Listen, I’m married, I’ve got five kids, I’ve got a job, I’m a deacon at the church, I’ve got my youth ministry, and a million other things going on. Sometimes it’s hard to take 30 minutes a couple of times a day for those prayers.

Right after those offices in the Prayer Book, there’s a section called Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families. It’s the same rhythmic kind of thing… morning, noonday, early evening, and close of day… but in a much shorter form.

So I built a little web app called The Rhythm to bring those prayers to your phone. We carry our phones everywhere. We don’t always carry our Book of Common Prayer.

The rubrics for those devotions also let you swap in a Psalm or reading from the Daily Office lectionary. So I built that in. If I’ve got a few extra minutes and want to pray the Gospel with my morning or noonday prayer, it’s just a tap and boom, it’s right there. You can also add notes when you finish a prayer.

During the call, I shared my screen and showed my notes from Evening Prayer that very day. I’d written that I was praying especially for the Order of the Daughters of the King that night.

Since I started building and testing it, I’ve been nailing my morning, noon, evening, and Compline prayers almost every single day. It’s been amazing.

But don’t try to do all four every day right out of the gate. Start with one. Morning Prayer, or whichever one is easiest to fit into your schedule. Get that rhythm going, and then add another. Maybe one of those times isn’t a prayer at all. Maybe it’s reading the Bible a chapter at a time.

Carol added something I really appreciated. She said it’s okay to admit that prayer is hard. It’s okay to look at each other and say, “I just need some help praying.” Maybe all the time, or maybe just in this season. Having something in hand can really help.

how to get The Rhythm on your phone

The Rhythm isn’t in the App Store or Google Play yet. It’s still pretty new, and I wanted to get it out there and test it before jumping through all those hoops. But it works on iPhone and Android right now.

1. On your phone, go to therhythm.bibledude.life.
2. Look for the button that says “Keep the rhythm close” and tap “Add to home screen.”
3. Follow the couple of quick steps it walks you through.

From there, it works just like any other app. You can also find it anytime under “Apps” in the menu here at BibleDude.life.

bonus thoughts

A few of the things I showed on the call are part of The Rhythm’s supporter membership, so here’s a quick look at what’s available:

• No account needed: Open the app and pray whatever prayer fits this moment, along with the Collect of the Day.
• Free account: All four daily prayers, the full Library of 82 prayers and thanksgivings, the collects, “Your rhythm,” and installing it on your phone.
• Supporter membership (starting at $3 a month): Today’s Psalms and readings from the Daily Office Lectionary, canticles and the Apostles’ Creed in the morning, “My Prayers” for the people and needs on your heart, and private, searchable notes.

I’d love for all of it to be completely free. But the technology behind it does cost a little to run, and I refuse to fill a prayer app with random ads. So I’ve worked to keep the cost low while keeping the heart of it free for everyone. If you choose to become a supporter, thank you. It helps me keep building tools like this to support people in their journey of faith.

You can read more about how The Rhythm works (and why it will never send you a single notification) in this post about praying the hours.

I Will, With God’s Help

32:05

Carol asked about my book I Will, With God’s Help, an 8-week study of the Baptismal Covenant.

It started a couple of years ago with our youth. We had a confirmation coming up and a couple of youth getting baptized, so we decided to study the Baptismal Covenant together. That study went so well. Like a lot of the studies I do with our youth, my biggest problem was getting them to stop talking. Youth group would run long, and I’d have parents waiting outside because the kids wouldn’t stop talking about the Bible and what it means to them. That’s an amazing problem to have as a youth minister.

Another deacon in our diocese, now a priest, sat in on a few of those sessions. She was blown away, and she asked me when I was going to do the same thing for the adults. Because we all need it.

So I kept digging. The Baptismal Covenant has eight pieces. First come the questions about believing in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, where we essentially recite the Apostles’ Creed in response. Then come the commitments we answer with, “I will, with God’s help.” Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers? I will, with God’s help.

The study breaks those eight pieces into eight weeks, with six days of activities each week:

• Days 1 through 4: Bible studies with specific scriptures that help frame what each piece really means. When we talk about God as Father, what does that really mean?
• Day 5: A more contemplative time with a Psalm. It’s not about breaking down the original language. It’s a time to kick back and soak it in.
• Day 6: A challenge to step into applying it. If I’m really going to live this out as part of my Baptismal Covenant, what does that mean? Sometimes it’s as simple as writing a letter to someone you haven’t talked to in a while.

When we talked, I was finishing up the study again with our youth, because we had nine kids getting confirmed that Sunday during our bishop’s visit. And again, they just love it. They eat it up.

bonus thoughts

I Will, With God’s Help is a great study for anyone considering baptism or confirmation. But it’s also a great fit for anyone discerning a call to the Daughters of the King, since a Daughter’s vows reaffirm the promises made at Baptism and Confirmation. And honestly, it’s a great study for any Christian who wants to dig deeper into what it really means to be a Christian.

I designed it so it works well for personal study. But it also includes resources for anyone who wants to lead it as a small group, which makes it a natural fit for a Daughters chapter. Everyone works through the daily studies on their own during the week. Then once a week, the group gathers to discuss the key ideas and what they got out of it. The group discussion questions are all in the appendix.

You can learn more about I Will, With God’s Help here.

writing as a spiritual practice

35:59

Carol made a great point. There’s nothing I’m doing that the Daughters can’t do too. I started with a blog, which is basically journaling and then deciding to share some of those thoughts. For Carol, longhand journaling is one of the ways she gets closer to God, because writing things down gives her time to process.

I started this blog a little over 19 years ago. It turns 20 in February! Back then I was working in young adult ministry and teaching a lot, so I had a lot going out. I was also taking classes at a small Bible school and studying theology, so I had a lot coming in. The blog became the outlet where I could process all of it.

For a while, it felt a little aimless… just a bunch of rambling notes. Then I came across Blog Action Day, when bloggers all around the world wrote on one topic on the same day. That year the topic was poverty. And I thought, “Oh, here we go. I’m a Christian. I’m supposed to care about stuff like that, right?”

As I dug in, my head was spinning. Poverty leads into so many other issues. Human trafficking isn’t just a trafficking issue. At its core, it’s a poverty issue too. While looking for faith-based solutions, I found an Episcopal and Anglican rooted organization doing work in microfinance. Those are the small loans that help one woman buy a sewing machine and start earning money as a seamstress.

I wrote about them and let them know. They got excited that a blogger was writing about them, so they started sharing stories with me. Then they asked if I wanted to go on a trip with them. I went to Kenya and Uganda and worked with some of the students in their microfinance programs. I kept daily trip journals and blogged the whole experience.

Long story short, that became my first book, The Unlikely Missionary: From Pew-Warmer to Poverty-Fighter. In the end, writing was how I worked out my faith. It could be a handwritten journal nobody ever sees, or it could be online. Either way, writing and telling those stories has helped me form my own ideas of what it means to be a Christian and how to live out my faith.

old journals and two brothers

One of the Daughters on the call shared that when she became a diocesan president, she was terrified. So she started writing things down. Now she journals every morning and can’t put it down. It’s become a way to focus her prayer life.

That reminded me of my wife. She’s got a stack of old journals too, full of notes. Sometimes it’s just a little random thought, and she doesn’t even know if it has any relevance.

Of our five kids, two are biological and three are adopted. At one point we had our two biological kids and had already adopted one. Then we were asked about adopting two brothers. Obviously, a lot of prayer and discernment goes into a decision like that.

So what did my wife do? She pulled out her old journals and started flipping through them. And she kept landing on notes she’d thought had no meaning… notes that fit the exact situation we were facing. There was so much confirmation in those old journals that helped us make that decision.

And yes, we’ve got two more boys now.

bonus thoughts

If you’ve never tried writing as a spiritual practice, don’t overthink it. Get a journal (maybe one of those little blue DoK notebooks!) and just start writing whatever is on your heart. It doesn’t have to be polished. Nobody else ever has to see it.

One simple way to start is to write right after you pray. What came up while you were praying? Who’s on your mind? What are you thankful for, or worried about? That’s actually why I added a notes feature at the end of each prayer in The Rhythm. Sometimes the most meaningful words come right after the “Amen.”

And like my wife discovered, you never know when something you wrote years ago will turn out to be exactly what you need today.

If you feel like God might be nudging you to share your writing online, I’d love to help with that too. Helping writers and ministries build their own websites and blogs is what I do professionally at Fistbump Media. If you want to talk through your options, just click “Talk to us” at the top of the site to set up a free consult.

I’m just a dude

50:01

Near the end of the call, Carol said something that made me smile. She said she didn’t want to talk me down, but I’m not really a very special guy. There’s nothing I’m doing that the Daughters can’t do too.

And she’s exactly right. I’m just a dude. Nothing special.

But I do kind of feel like I’m a testimony to what God can do with somebody who just says, “You know what, here I am. Just use me, God.” Carol added that those who are ordained are people too, full of faults and problems, who just happen to have a different job. (And if you want to read about people who literally put themselves up on pedestals, she suggested looking up the Stylites among the desert fathers. Ha!)

And honestly, that’s my encouragement for every Daughter, and for anyone reading this. God isn’t looking for super-Christians. He’s looking for willing ones.

The Daughters have a well-known motto that I can’t stop thinking about since our conversation:

I am but one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do.

That’s the same invitation I tried to share all night. You don’t have to do everything. Pick one prayer. Read one chapter. Write one page. Serve one neighbor. Start there, and let God build the rhythm.

Because healing rarely happens all at once. But it does come, one sacred rhythm at a time.

Thank you, Carol, and thank you to every Daughter who joined us. I was praying for you that night, and I’m still praying for you now.

Start praying with The Rhythm at therhythm.bibledude.life.

Learn more about The Order of the Daughters of the King. Want me to speak with your chapter, retreat, or parish? Reach out to me here.

I was in the middle of my discernment process for ordination as a deacon. That alone is a lot. But everything around it was full of anxiety and stress too… the kind of big life challenges that keep you up at night and follow you around all day.

During that season, I started praying the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer. Morning Prayer. Evening Prayer. The Psalms, the Scripture readings, and the ancient prayers of the Church.

And something shifted.

On the days I was consistent with it, my mind and my heart got set right. I found a peace that didn’t depend on how the day was going. It helped me feel like I could actually breathe, and like I could actually get through whatever was in front of me.

The problem? Consistency.

I even confessed this in my book, Holy Rhythms for Hurting Hearts. I love the Daily Office, but I could certainly be more consistent with it. Praying it usually meant having my prayer book with me and carving out 20 to 30 minutes. Some days that happened. A lot of days it didn’t.

And the days I needed it most were usually the days I had the least time.

why a daily prayer routine is so hard to keep

I have a feeling I’m not the only one who’s been there.

You decide this is the time you’re finally going to build a real prayer life. Quiet time every morning. A journal. Maybe a new devotional book. The first week goes great. Then there’s a busy Tuesday. Then a sick kid. Then a week of travel. And by the end of the month, the whole thing has quietly fallen apart… and you feel a little guilty every time you think about it.

I don’t think that’s a willpower problem. I think it’s usually one of a few things.

It feels all-or-nothing. If you can’t do the full thing, it doesn’t feel like it counts. So on the busy days, you do nothing at all.

It takes stuff and time you don’t always have. The right book, a quiet room, and a solid half hour aren’t always available on a Wednesday at noon.

The tools meant to help can add pressure. A lot of prayer apps try to solve consistency with reminders. Ding… time to pray! But that ding rarely shows up at a convenient moment. It comes in the middle of a meeting, in traffic, or in the middle of a hard conversation with your kid. So instead of an invitation, it becomes one more thing you didn’t do.

Prayer was never meant to be one more thing to feel guilty about. And as it turns out, the Church figured out a better way a very long time ago.

fixed hour prayer: a rhythm older than any denomination

God’s people have been praying at set times through the day for thousands of years. It’s often called fixed hour prayer, or praying the hours.

You can see it all through Scripture. The psalmist cries out to God evening, morning, and noon (Psalm 55:17). Daniel kneels to pray three times a day, even when it could cost him his life (Daniel 6:10). Peter and John head to the temple at the hour of prayer (Acts 3:1). And Peter goes up on a rooftop to pray around noon (Acts 10:9).

The early Church carried that rhythm forward. Monastic communities built their entire day around it. In the sixth century, St. Benedict’s Rule had monks gathering to pray eight times a day, with the Psalms woven all the way through.

Most of us aren’t monks. (I’m definitely not.) But when Thomas Cranmer put together the first English Book of Common Prayer, he took those monastic hours and shaped them into a rhythm ordinary people could actually live with. That same heartbeat still runs through the Book of Common Prayer today, with Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline.

And if you’re Catholic, this will feel familiar. It’s the same family of prayer as the Liturgy of the Hours.

What captured me most was the Benedictine idea of multiple touch points through the day. Not one big block of prayer that has to go perfectly, but small moments scattered throughout the day that keep pulling your heart back toward God.

four short prayers, from morning to night

Tucked into the Book of Common Prayer, right after the fuller Daily Office services, is a little section called Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families (starting on p. 136).

These four devotions follow the same basic shape as the Daily Office, just shorter, and made for personal and household use. There’s one for the morning, one at noon, one in the early evening, and one at the close of day. Each one has a Psalm, a short Scripture reading, and a few prayers. You can pray any of them in just a few minutes.

And here’s the thing I didn’t expect. When you pray the same words day after day, some of them become like old friends. I’ve found a little something in each of the four that I genuinely look forward to… a word or phrase that brings me right back to the presence of God.

In the Morning

The morning prayer opens with words from Psalm 51:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Every time I pray it, it feels like I’m receiving His promise of something fresh at the start of each new day. Whatever yesterday was, today gets a clean heart.

At Noon

The noon prayer includes this short reading from Isaiah:

O God, you will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are fixed on you…

This one always brings me right back to why I keep showing up. The practice helps me keep my mind fixed on Him in the middle of a busy day. And His peace comes with that? Awesome.

In the Early Evening

The early evening prayer closes with a collect that begins:

Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past…

As my day shifts and other things start coming to an end, this reminds me that He’s still with me. His presence is the constant, even when everything else is winding down. That’s incredibly comforting.

At the Close of Day

The last prayer of the day is a short form of Compline, the Church’s ancient bedtime prayer, prayed before sleep for centuries. Its closing collect begins:

Visit this place, O Lord, and drive far from it all snares of the enemy; let your holy angels dwell with us to preserve us in peace…

As I get ready to lay down to sleep, this reminds me that His provision and protection are with me even while I’m sleeping. I don’t have to worry about what I can’t control while I’m not awake. He’s got me covered all night long.

you don’t have to be Episcopalian to pray this way

If you’re Episcopalian or Anglican, these prayers will feel familiar. You probably know the fuller versions of the Daily Office well. These shorter forms just make that rhythm easier to reach… especially when you’re not carrying a prayer book everywhere you go.

But if you come from a non-liturgical church, let me speak to you for a minute. I spent years in charismatic, non-denominational churches before I found my way into the Episcopal Church. So I understand if words like “liturgy” and “written prayers” sound a little stiff.

On the surface, liturgical prayer can look mechanical and repetitive. But when you dig in, you find something rich and deeply personal.

It’s Scripture-led prayer. These devotions are built on the Psalms and the Word of God. You’re praying the same words God’s people have prayed for centuries. And on the days you don’t have your own words, they give you some.

It makes room for your own prayers. Each devotion has a place where you can offer prayers for the people and needs on your heart. Your friend who’s sick. Your kid who’s struggling. That decision you can’t stop thinking about. Your words can be as long or as short as you need them to be.

That’s where the beauty is. The written prayers give you a solid place to stand, and your own prayers make it yours. It’s structure and freedom working together, not one or the other.

The Rhythm: a praying the hours app for real life

I wanted these prayers with me wherever I was. No extra book to carry. No 30-minute block to protect. Just a way to open them up in a few spare minutes, and make the time as big or as simple as the day allowed.

So I built one.

The Rhythm is a free app that brings the four Daily Devotions from the Book of Common Prayer to your phone. You can try it free right now, and you don’t even need an account to pray whatever prayer fits this moment.

Here’s how it works.

open it and it’s ready for right now

The Today page has a “Now” card that opens whichever prayer fits the time of day. Morning? It’s ready. Lunch break? Noon is waiting.

The Today page also shows the Collect of the Day or Week, which follows the Church year, Holy Days included. So as the seasons of the Church move from Advent to Lent to Easter and beyond, your daily prayers move right along with them.

pray, then say Amen

Each prayer is the text from the Book of Common Prayer, word for word, with its Psalm, short reading, and prayers. Nothing is paraphrased or “improved.”

When you finish, you tap Amen.

see your rhythm take root

Tapping Amen records that you prayed. Over time, “Your rhythm” shows how many days you’ve prayed this week and in all.

It’s a quiet picture of a practice taking root. There are no streaks to protect, and missed days are never counted against you. And if you pray Compline late, it still counts for that evening. (A “prayer day” runs until 3 a.m.)

The goal is peace, not pressure.

82 more prayers and thanksgivings for whatever the day brings

Life doesn’t always fit into four time slots. So The Rhythm also includes a Library of 82 prayers and thanksgivings from the Book of Common Prayer, organized into 13 sections for particular needs and occasions. When something comes up that you want to bring to God, there’s probably a prayer for it.

it goes where you go

The Rhythm is a web app, so it works right from your phone’s browser. You can install it to your home screen and it works just like any other app, with no app store required.

The prayers still open when you don’t have a signal. And signing in uses a one-time code sent to your email, so there’s no password to remember.

why The Rhythm will never ding at you

Ding… you have a new email. Ding… someone liked your post. Ding… a score update for your favorite team.

Our phones are always summoning us. And every ding pulls our attention away from wherever we actually are. I wrote a whole chapter about this in Holy Rhythms for Hurting Hearts, about how ancient practices of stillness can help us put our devices back in their proper place.

So I made a deliberate choice. The Rhythm has no notifications and no reminders. None.

A ding telling you it’s time to pray almost never comes at a good moment. And when you can’t stop to pray right then, the reminder doesn’t draw you closer to God. It just leaves you feeling guilty. That’s the opposite of what I want this to be.

The Rhythm is an invitation, not an obligation. It’s there when you come to it, on your own timing.

And here’s what surprised me. Without anything nudging me, I’ve started to genuinely miss it when the day crowds one of the prayers out. Not guilt… just a little longing. I want to get back to those words that remind me I’m not alone.

That’s the kind of motivation that actually lasts.

building a rule of life, one prayer at a time

A rule of life is a simple set of rhythms that shape how you live… how you pray, rest, work, and love the people around you. The idea goes back to St. Benedict, but it isn’t about rigid rules or legalism.

As I put it in the book, it’s not about guilt. It’s about guidance.

A daily rhythm of prayer is one of the best places to start a rule of life. And the best way to start is small. Here’s what I’d suggest:

1. Go to therhythm.bibledude.life and pray whatever prayer is up right now. No account needed.
2. Create a free account. That opens up all four prayers and the full Library.
3. Install it on your phone so it’s one tap away.
4. Pick one prayer, not four. Maybe it’s the morning prayer with your coffee, or Compline before bed. Pray that same one for a week.
5. Add another when you’re ready. Let the rhythm grow at its own pace.

One of the first people to try The Rhythm told me it was incredibly easy to use and that they loved it. That’s exactly what I hoped for. Something simple enough to pick up on any ordinary day, and deep enough to keep coming back to.

free to pray, with ways to go deeper

The heart of The Rhythm is free, and it always will be. Create a free account and you get all four daily prayers exactly as printed, the full Library, the collects, your rhythm, and the ability to install it on your phone.

For those who want to go deeper, paid levels start at just $3 a month and unlock some really nice premium features:

• Today’s Psalms and readings. Swap in the Psalms and readings appointed for that day in the Daily Office Lectionary.
• Canticles and the Creed. In the morning, pray one of the canticles from the Book of Common Prayer or the Apostles’ Creed.
• My Prayers. Keep a list of the people and needs you’re praying for, and they’ll show up automatically where each prayer invites your own prayers.
• A quiet place for notes. Write what’s on your heart after you pray. Your notes are private and searchable.

This is how you can make your time as big as you want. And it helps keep the core of The Rhythm free for everyone else.

frequently asked questions

How long does each prayer take?

As long or as short as you need. Each core prayer can be prayed in about 2 to 4 minutes. Adding the day’s Psalms and readings, or your own prayers, can stretch that out as much as you want. You can pray one in 3 minutes while waiting in line, or spend 30 minutes going deeper. Or use 5 to 10 minutes as a foundation that launches you into a longer time of personal prayer and reflection.

Do I have to pray all four prayers every day?

Not at all. Start with one. Many people find one or two prayers a day is a beautiful rhythm. Add more whenever you’re ready.

Do I need to be Episcopalian or Anglican?

No. These prayers come from the Book of Common Prayer, but they’re built on Scripture and the Psalms, and they’re shaped by a rhythm of prayer that’s centuries older than any denomination. Christians from any tradition can pray them.

Is this the same as the Liturgy of the Hours?

It’s part of the same family. The Liturgy of the Hours is the Catholic form of praying the hours. The Rhythm uses the shorter Daily Devotions from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, which follow the same ancient pattern of praying at set times through the day.

What is Compline?

Compline is the Church’s traditional prayer at the close of the day, prayed just before sleep. The Rhythm’s final prayer, At the Close of Day, is a short form of Compline.

Is The Rhythm really free?

Yes. The four prayers, the Library, the collects, and your rhythm are always free. Paid levels starting at $3 a month add extra features for going deeper.

Which Bible translation does it use?

The Psalms come from the Psalter in the Book of Common Prayer, and the readings use the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation. More translations are planned.

Is The Rhythm in the app stores?

Not right now. It’s a web app, so you open it in your phone’s browser and install it to your home screen. Once installed, it works just like any other app.

What happens if I miss a prayer or a whole day?

Nothing at all. Missed days are never counted against you. Just come back whenever you’re ready.

finding your rhythm

I started praying these prayers because I needed to breathe. And somewhere along the way, they became the places in my day where I’m reminded that I’m not alone. A clean heart in the morning. Perfect peace at noon. His presence as the day winds down. His protection through the night.

You don’t have to overhaul your whole life to find that kind of peace. You don’t need a perfect morning routine or an hour of quiet. You just need a few minutes, a few ancient words, and a willingness to show up.

Healing rarely happens all at once. But it does come, one sacred rhythm at a time.

Start praying with The Rhythm at therhythm.bibledude.life.

The Rhythm is a free prayer app from BibleDude.life and a companion to Holy Rhythms for Hurting Hearts. Questions? Reach out to me here.

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

— Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

the sermon

Twentieth-century theologian, Karl Barth, likely best known for his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, has said that if you get this verse wrong, then you’ve misunderstood the whole book of Romans. 

Everything Paul means by grace, judgement, election, and hope hangs on getting this one verse right.

So let’s not get it wrong!

Paul is writing to a church that’s coming apart at the seams. 

Prior to this letter, the Jews were expelled from Rome by the Emperor Claudius (likely because of conflicts over Christ). 

When the Jewish believers returned several years later after Claudius’ death, they found Gentile-led congregations with their own rhythms and practices. And the Gentile believers looked at what they saw as Jewish unbelief, or basically desertion.

Both sides were pointing at how the other had walked away, with God essentially turning His back on them.

The disqualified one another.

And it’s into this tension that Paul writes:

“For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.”

the disqualified one

I want to share a story with you. 

As some of you may know, my journey to getting ordained started over 20 years before it ever actually happened. And in that 20 years, there was a lot of feeling disqualified. Not from forgiveness, but more from being used by God.

I felt certain that I got the call to pursue ordination. So I stepped out and did everything I knew that I could to move me in that direction.

I pursued education.
I served in all kinds of ministries.
I took on leadership roles.

I felt certain that I had positioned myself to become the next youth pastor. The fulfillment of my calling was right there.

Then I watched as I got passed over because a couple people in leadership over me didn’t really understand me. I was disqualified.

And it’s a pattern that kept repeating itself. I’d brush it off as no big deal, and then a few years later, another opportunity would come up, only to get brushed to the side… again.

There were times when I questioned whether I actually ever heard God’s call at all.

I felt disqualified.

I honestly felt like it was never going to happen. Which is crazy, because I feel like I knew what I brought to the table. I was confident in my experience and education and my relationship with God.

It’s funny how it works, but I think that often when people overlook us, we can feel like maybe God is overlooking us too.

everyone failed, and God showed up anyway

When Paul catches wind of what’s happening in the church in Rome, he needs to tackle this head on. He writes,

“Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy.”

So while the Jews and Gentiles are trying to measure their own faithfulness over one another, Paul is pointing out to them that neither side of this argument is right. 

He’s basically telling them that no one gets to stand over another because everyone stands equally in need.

In the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom wrote in his Homilies on Romans that,

“God has concluded them all in unbelief… not that they may remain in disobedience, but that He may save the one by the [stubbornness] of the other.”

Earlier in that same homily, commenting on why no one gets to boast, he writes,

“the whole comes of grace from above”

In other words, God’s grace has nothing to do with achievement or accomplishment. It’s not something you can earn. 

The gospel isn’t ‘some people fail, some people don’t.’ It’s ‘everyone failed, and God showed up anyway.’

This is where Paul throws in this statement that Karl Barth thinks is so important.

“For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.”

And he’s not saying that we’re all imprisoned exactly the same way. I think sometimes we get quick to measure our faithfulness against someone else’s failure. And that’s exactly what Paul is speaking against.

It doesn’t matter what you or someone else may say disqualifies you, we’re all imprisoned together. And we all equally receive God’s mercy. It may look different for you than it does for me. But we all need it, and we all get it.

Barth preached on this to prisoners once (collected in Deliverance to the Captives), saying, 

“God has mercy on all, though on each one in his own way.”

irrevocable

There’s one other word in here that I want to take a look at with you, because it’s a really important one.

In the middle of all this, Paul writes,

“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”

Irrevocable.

This word that Paul uses here means that God doesn’t take back what He’s given. There is no buyer’s remorse from God!

Paul is leaning on this idea that when God says something, that’s it. There’s no changing the promise.

Listen…

This is the God who in the beginning said, “Let there be light.” And there was light.

This is the God who told Abraham that because of his faith, his descendants would be like the stars. And even today, we are living examples of the fulfilment of that promise… the same promise that Paul is defending in our passage today.

This is the God who said hanging on the Cross, “It is finished.”

When Paul tells us that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable, it means that there’s nothing anyone can do to take them away.

God’s gifts and calling never come with an expiration date.

What we see in our lives as failure, God sees as the doorway to mercy. And God’s mercy doesn’t wait for us to stop failing. It meets us in the very situation we thought disqualified us.

This keeps us in a position where we don’t need to listen to the voices that try to keep us down. We can trust God to lift us up and give us gifts like salvation. And that He will stand by the callings He gives us, whatever it is.

It also prevents us from looking at the source of those voices as our enemy who’s just trying to keep us down. We’re all in the same boat together, all in need of the same irrevocable mercy.

That mercy isn’t just something we receive. It’s something we promised to pass on.

with God’s help

There’s a question we ask at the font every time someone is baptized in this church.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

And the answer is always the same.

I will, with God’s help.

It’s not, “I will if they deserve it.” It’s not even, “I will once I understand them.” It’s just, “I will. With God’s help.”

Here’s what makes that question so hard. Jesus doesn’t just ask us to be kind to people in need. He’s making a much bigger claim than that. He says, in all persons. 

He says whatever you did for the hungry, the lonely, the overlooked, you did it to me. 

There’s a line from a study on the Baptismal Covenant I’ve been working on that puts it this way: The king and the person in front of you are the same person, encountered from different angles.

So if that’s true, then the person who overlooked you carries Christ too.

The one who couldn’t see what you brought to the table.
The one who passed you over.
The one whose voice tried to convince you that you were disqualified.

And don’t forget that sometimes that person is the one in the mirror.

Christ is in them too, whether they’ve ever acted like it or not.

That’s the harder half of this Good News. It’s one thing to believe you’re not disqualified. It’s another thing to stop treating the people who made you feel that way as your enemy.

We’re all in the same boat. All imprisoned in the same disobedience. All equally in the need of the same irrevocable mercy.

So this week, look for Christ in the face of someone who’s easy to overlook. And look for Christ in the face of someone who’s overlooked you.

Neither of those is optional if we’re going to keep the promise that we make at that baptismal font.

I will, with God’s help.

So it probably won’t surprise you to know that I eventually turned that same thinking into an AI Bible study tool I could package up and share.

I want to introduce you to the Exegesis Skill for Claude AI. It’s a structured biblical study framework I built for my own sermon and teaching prep, and then decided to make available to anyone else who might find it useful.

what this AI Bible study tool actually does

The Exegesis Skill is a Claude AI skill file that runs a full, eight-step exegetical process on any Scripture passage you hand it. It’s not a sermon generator. It’s not a devotional factory. It’s a serious AI Bible study tool that treats Scripture with the kind of careful, systematic attention it deserves.

Here’s what I mean by that. Exegesis, if you’re not familiar with the term, is the careful examination of a biblical text to get to the plain meaning of the text to its original audience, before you start drawing conclusions about what it means for us today. That involves examining the historical setting, the literary structure, the original language, and the broader theological themes at work. Done properly, it’s the kind of work that traditionally requires hours with commentaries, lexicons, and reference materials.

What this skill does is bring that same process into a focused, structured AI conversation, guided by a framework I’ve built and tested over time.

the eight steps

Every passage runs through all eight steps in order. No shortcuts.

Establish Context orients you within the book and the broader biblical story before you dig into any details. Historical Context explores the world of the text, the cultural, political, and social realities that shaped the author and the original audience. Literary Context reads the text on its own terms, paying attention to genre, structure, movement, and patterns.

From there, Key Words and Phrases examines several significant terms in the original Hebrew or Greek, with transliterations and notes on why they matter.

Theological Insights identifies what the passage reveals about God’s character and humanity’s condition, and connects it to overarching themes like covenant, redemption, and restoration. Canonical Connections situates the passage within the broader witness of Scripture… cross-references, typological connections, and New Testament fulfillment where it’s relevant.

Then comes Historical and Traditional Perspectives, which surveys how the church has read this text across 2,000 years, drawing from the Early Church Fathers, medieval interpreters, Reformation voices, Anglican divines, and modern scholars.

And finally, Summary Synthesis pulls it all together with the plain meaning of the text, a one-sentence Big Idea, two or three teaching or preaching angles, and practical applications shaped by whatever purpose you’re studying for.

the story that made me realize this was different

Let me tell you about a specific moment that changed how I thought about what this tool was actually capable of.

I was studying a passage in 1 Peter for a youth study… one of the sections that addresses instruction for wives. The historical context alone (understanding the dynamics of the time, place, and culture) was deeply informative and shaped the entire direction of our conversation. But it was the Historical and Traditional Perspectives step that really got my attention.

Most of the historical views the skill surfaced were where I expected them to land, given everything the historical and literary context had already established. But there was one… a perspective that went entirely against the grain. And my first instinct was to wonder why it was even there.

But then I sat with it. And I realized that’s exactly why it should be there.

In Episcopal and Anglican theology, we hold to what Richard Hooker called the three-legged stool: Scripture, tradition, and reason. The reason leg isn’t optional. It’s how we engage critically and thoughtfully with what we encounter in Scripture and tradition. And what this skill gave me was not just the views that supported a tidy conclusion, but the full range of how the church has wrestled with this text, including the voices that went a different direction.

That divergent perspective became one of the most valuable parts of our group study. We didn’t just accept it. We engaged with it. We talked about why we found it unconvincing, what it got wrong, where it misread the historical context. It became a real theological conversation, not just a confirmation of what we already believed.

That’s when I knew this was a genuine study resource and not just a tool that tells you what it thinks you want to hear.

it’s built in an episcopal/anglican framework… and that’s a feature

I want to be transparent about something. This skill was built within my own theological tradition. That means it carries certain instincts throughout… attentiveness to liturgy, an incarnational and sacramental theological sensibility, awareness of the Anglican divine tradition, and a pastoral tone that holds depth and warmth together.

It references voices like N.T. Wright, Rowan Williams, and Fleming Rutledge alongside Walter Brueggemann, Abraham Heschel, and the Church Fathers. The three-legged stool is embedded in how it approaches the tradition step. The whole thing is shaped by how I, as an ordained Deacon in the Episcopal Church, actually do the work of studying Scripture.

I think that’s a strength. Not a limitation.

But I also want to be clear: if you come from a different tradition, this is adaptable. A Reformed pastor can build in their confessional standards. A Wesleyan preacher can bring in the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. A pastor from a non-denominational background can define their own hermeneutical principles. The framework is the structure. You can adjust the theological instincts to match your context. The skill file is plain text, so there’s nothing opaque or locked down about it.

who it’s for

I built this for my own sermon preparation, and I still use it that way. But over time I’ve found it just as valuable in other contexts.

• If you’re a pastor or clergy person preparing to preach, it gives you a comprehensive exegetical foundation before you write a single word of your manuscript.
• If you’re a lay leader preparing an adult education class or a small group discussion, it gives you the kind of depth you might not have the time or training to reach on your own.
• If you’re a youth leader who wants to take a passage seriously without over-simplifying it, it helps you find the theological substance and then figure out how to translate it appropriately.
• And if you’re doing personal study (just you and a passage you want to understand better) it’s a remarkable conversation partner.

The skill also has optional extended layers you can activate: a mental health and pastoral care dimension that connects the text to anxiety, grief, lament, and healing; a youth ministry application layer with discussion questions and simple practices; and a liturgical and prayer connection that ties into the Book of Common Prayer, the Daily Office, and a brief closing prayer drawn from the text’s own language.

One more thing worth saying clearly: this isn’t a plug-and-play tool where you drop in a verse and get back a set of notes. It’s a conversation. Once the skill runs through the eight steps, you can keep talking. Push back on something that stood out to you. Bring in your own experience and understanding and see how it intersects with what the skill surfaced. Ask a follow-up question about a detail that caught your attention. Keep working through it until the passage actually opens up for you.

It’s not a static resource you read once and set aside. It’s dynamic. It helps you sort through the ideas, sit with the tensions, and keep digging until you get what you actually need from the Scripture you’re studying.

how to get it

The Exegesis Skill is available as a free download on my Gumroad. It’s a ZIP file that includes the SKILL.md file and a README that walks you through what it is, how to install it into a Claude project, and how to use it. You don’t have to pay anything for it, but if you find it valuable, tips are always welcome and genuinely appreciated.

If you haven’t read AI Systems for Churches yet, that book is the fuller context for all of this. Chapter 4 especially gets into how I think about AI-assisted exegesis and sermon preparation, and the principles in there shaped how I built this skill. The skill is a companion to that work… a practical, installable expression of what that chapter is pointing toward. And if you’re wondering what AI tools to use, check out… The AI Tech Stack That Can Transform Your Church’s Ministry (For About $31/Month).

This isn’t AI replacing the study. It’s AI making the study better. There’s a difference. And if you’ve been looking for a way to go deeper with Scripture preparation without spending hours you don’t have, I think this might be exactly what you’ve been looking for.

Download the Exegesis Framework Skill on Gumroad →

• Genesis 1:1-2:4a
• 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
• Matthew 28:16-20
• Psalm 8

the sermon:

I got the Eucharist schedule from Father Mark, and I saw this week was Trinity Sunday, then looked in the “sermon” column and had my name there, and my initial reaction was…

*GRUNT* … How can I get the live feed to (air quotes) “not work?” Because I knew that trying to explain the Trinity would probably result in me preaching some kind of heresy. 

In fact, I just saw a meme that said, “How not to commit heresy preaching on the Trinity… Say nothing and show pictures of kittens instead.”

Then as I was preparing and digging through the readings, I started to realize that it’s not so much a doctrine to explain, but simply sharing who God has always been and what that means for us.

The Triune God is unique. And not just in what He does, but also in what He is before doing anything at all.

So let’s go back to the beginning…

who God is before anything exists

Genesis 1 starts it off by saying:

“In the beginning when God created…”

I’ll stop right there for a moment. I love getting into the original language grammar, because it always shows some fascinating stuff. Check this out…

God here is Elohim, which is one of the primary names for God in the Old Testament. But grammatically, it’s plural. 

But here in this opening statement the verb for created, which is bara, is used in the singular.

The more than one, acting in a singular way. I don’t want to overly read into this, but even before Creation, this points to One God, but not simple in nature.

Let’s jump ahead to verse 26 where it says:

“Then God (Elohim) said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…’”

Even ancient Hebrew scholars have debated the use of the plural in this verse for thousands of years, many referring to it as a “royal we” or some kind of divine council. But through the lens of Christian reading and canonical witness, it’s easy to hear the relational nature of the Triune God speaking from within itself.

This is actually one of the things that makes the Christian faith different. Many in our culture would say, “Don’t all gods just point to the same God?”

I would argue that they don’t.

Listen… Before anything existed, love already did. 

The Triune God wasn’t lonely.
Wasn’t incomplete.
Wasn’t creating in order to have someone to love.

God was already, in His very nature, a community of self-giving love. 

Creation doesn’t fulfill God.
Creation expresses God.

This is what makes the Christian God unique. Other monotheistic concepts of God create out of need or will. They create in order to find love.

The Triune God creates out of overflow.

And it’s this God, the One who spoke everything else into existence, said “let us make,” and then reached into the dirt with both hands and crafted us. 

The word used for that act is yatsar, which is like a potter shaping clay. It’s more like an artisan at work with intentionality and care. 

And then He breathes life into us through our nostrils… breath… the same word used in verse 2 talking about the wind, or the Spirit, of God moving over the face of the waters.

This says a great deal about God and His nature. But it also says a lot about us. Created in His image, we are a living declaration of the presence and character of God in the world.

And that changes everything about how we understand ourselves.

the parenting bridge

I have to say, I think I’ve learned more about God by becoming a parent than anything else I’ve ever experienced.

I remember the day my first child was born. Going into the day, I thought I knew what love was. But I was not ready for how this would impact me.

After all the preparation and waiting and anticipation, Samuel arrived. The nurses take him, clean him up a little bit, and then lay him down in (I don’t know what it’s called, I just always call it) the french fry warmer. He’s just laying there crying, screaming actually.

I asked the nurse if I could touch him. She said, “absolutely.” So I leaned down to him, gently touched his head, and said to him, “It’s okay Samuel, daddy’s here.”

And instantly, he stopped crying and turned his head towards the sound of my voice.

From that moment. I think we both knew that everything was going to be different.

He’s 23 now.

And over the years, we’ve laughed together.
We’ve cried together.
We’ve been mad at each other.

And we’ve had the best of times together.

Now he’s a man. Building his own life. Doing his thing. 

And I couldn’t be more proud of him.

And that’s pretty much what we see God doing in Genesis 1. Making mankind in His image, and sending them into the world as bearers of that image.

And if you know Samuel, then you know that he certainly bears my image. Krista looks at the two of us and says (*snipping motion*), “cut from the same cloth.”

But you know what’s awesome? I hear the same thing regularly about even my adopted kids. From time to time, someone will say something to me like, “Man, Andrew totally has your sense of humor!”

Image-bearing goes much deeper than just appearance. It’s that sense of humor. It’s the way we approach the world.

It’s not only biological. It’s relational. It’s formed through love and time and presence.

So when Genesis says we’re made in the image of God, it’s more than resemblance. It’s describing a relationship. A belonging.

what is man that You are mindful of him?

We struggle to get this sometimes, though, don’t we?

In our Psalm today, we even see David asking the question:

“What is man that you should be mindful of him?”

It’s a big question! Why does a God who is already complete in love, who spoke galaxies into existence, bend towards these small, dust-formed creatures with such attention?

The answer isn’t found in us. It’s found in God. It’s simply who God is.

God moves toward.
God attends.
God notices.

But belonging to a God like that doesn’t just make you feel secure in who you are. It eventually sends you somewhere.

the sending

And that brings us to our Gospel reading in Matthew 28.

Eleven disciples standing on a mountain in Galilee. In Matthew’s Gospel, mountains are where heaven and earth meet.

And in that place, it says that some doubted. These are the resurrection witnesses! They’ve seen the risen Christ. Yet some are still doubting.

But Jesus doesn’t address or correct it. He commissions them anyway. 

He commissions the doubters.
He sends the uncertain.

Listen, if you’re sitting here today, and maybe you love God, but you can’t get to certainty, take note. The mission doesn’t require resolved doubt. It only requires showing up.

Then before the commission, Jesus gives us a declaration:

“All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.”

When Jesus sends us out, it’s not going out under our own authority. It’s under the authority of the One who made you, formed you, breathed life into you.

This echoes the dominion given to image-bearers in Genesis 1:28. It’s the renewal of the original vocation.

Then Jesus sends out to all nations, saying:

“Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

This is the only explicit Trinitarian formula in the Gospels, and it’s not in a creed, but in a commission.

The Trinity isn’t given to us as a puzzle to solve. It’s given as the name we go in. The name of Love that existed before anything else.

And in the original language, it means more literally that we are baptized into the name. In other words, baptism is an entrance into the relational life of the Triune God.

Then the most beautiful thing happens. 

The commission doesn’t end with a task. It ends with a promise. Jesus says:

“And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The God who hovered over the waters, who got in the dirt, who breathed life into dust, who stood on a mountain with doubting friends, says: I’m not sending you away from me. I’m sending you with me.

This is fascinating. I think we often treat the Great Commission like a recruitment drive. But Jesus frames it as something far more like what we just watched God do in Genesis. It’s not about adding numbers. It’s about extending love.

We’re doing the same thing God has done from the very beginning… extending this amazing Love to every corner of the earth.

into ordinary time

This is Trinity Sunday. It’s like the great kick-off party for the long green season. 

Ordinary time.

And if we’re honest, it’s anything but ordinary! It’s the season in our liturgical calendar when the Church stops looking at the life of Christ and starts living out the life of the Church.

It’s the season where the story shifts from what God did to what God’s people do.

And that’s exactly what Matthew 28 is about. The Triune God who existed in love before creation, who crafted humanity with intention and intimacy, who commissioned doubters on a mountain in Galilee, is now sending us.

Into our neighborhoods.
Our workplaces.
Our families.

Sending us to be love, and to extend love in all those places.

Paul, near the end of his second letter to the Corinthians, after walking a messy and complicated congregation through some of the hardest things they’d ever faced, doesn’t end with a to-do list. He ends with a blessing that sounds a lot like the blessing we get at the end of the Eucharist. A blessing that is also, in its own way, a commission. 

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

Paul doesn’t explain the Trinity. He blesses people with it. And then he sends them. 

So consider yourself blessed.
And consider yourself sent.

Amen.

Image: Our Lady of the Rosary Shrine at Saint Patrick Church (Merlin, Ontario) – stained glass, church nave, Symbols of the Persons of the Trinity, used via Creative Commons.

It worked. Sort of.

The honest truth is that some kids would come back in September having genuinely dug into the Word all summer. Others… not so much. And I never really had a way to know who was engaged, who needed encouragement, or who had totally fallen off by the second week of June.

That’s been gnawing at me for a while now, because reading and studying the Bible is a truly transformative experience. So this summer, I finally did something about it.

The Problem with Summer Bible Reading for Youth

Summer is genuinely hard for keeping youth engaged spiritually. There’s no regular gathering. No built-in accountability. No social thread connecting them to each other or to their faith community. School provides structure, youth group provides community, and summer quietly strips both away.

And teenagers are wired for social connection. They don’t do things in isolation — they do things together. They want to know how their friends are doing, whether they’re keeping up, whether they’re winning. That’s not a flaw. That’s just how they’re built.

The other challenge is that a printed flyer and an honor system only goes so far. There’s no momentum to it. No sense of progress. No moment where a kid feels the satisfaction of checking something off and watching a streak grow.

So I started thinking about what would actually work. And the answer turned out to be something we already had in our pockets.

What Actually Keeps Teenagers Engaged

If you’ve ever watched a teenager with a game on their phone, you already know the answer. It’s not complexity. It’s not difficulty. It’s the combination of three simple things:

A clear goal. They know exactly what they’re working toward. The finish line is visible.

A sense of progress. Every action moves the needle. They can see how far they’ve come.

Social stakes. Other people can see how they’re doing. There’s friendly competition. There’s community.

Bible apps already exist, of course. But most of them are built for solo devotional use, not for a youth group doing a challenge together. And none of them were built with the specific reading plans I wanted to use, the group dynamic I was trying to create, or the Episcopal tradition I wanted to honor (not that you have to be Episcopalian to use this, it works for any denomination).

So I built one.

Introducing The Dig

The Dig is a free Bible reading challenge tracker I built specifically for this. It’s a web app — meaning it works on any phone or device without needing to download anything from an app store (but you can “Save to Home” screen so that it functions just like any other app). You just go to thedig.bibledude.life, create an account, and you’re in.

Here’s how it works.

Pick Your Challenge

Right now The Dig is running a Summer Challenge with seven different reading plans to choose from:

Core Challenges (always available):

• Gospels & Acts — All four Gospels and the Book of Acts. 117 chapters covering the complete story of Jesus and the birth of the Church.
• Psalms — All 150 songs, prayers, and poems of ancient Israel.

Sprint Challenges (under 50 chapters):

• Early Israel History — Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. 49 chapters of conquest, faithfulness, and some genuinely wild stories.
• Exile & Return — Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. 33 chapters about God’s faithfulness in the darkest season of Israel’s history.

Challenge Tier (50-90 chapters):

• Minor Prophets — All twelve minor prophets, Hosea through Malachi. 67 chapters of voices calling people back to God.
• John’s World — The Gospel of John, 1-3 John, and the complete book of Revelation. 50 chapters of the theology of love and the end of all things.
• Paul’s Letters — Romans through Philemon. 87 chapters of the theological backbone of the New Testament.

Kids can pick one challenge or tackle multiple at the same time. It’s completely at their own pace — there’s no “daily reading” assigned, no missed days, no guilt. If you want to read ten chapters of Psalms today and nothing tomorrow, go for it.

Log It, Track It

When you open a challenge you see each book broken out with its individual chapters. Tap a chapter to log it. It turns green with a checkmark. Tap again to unlog it if you made a mistake.

That’s genuinely it. The simplicity is intentional. The friction has to be low enough that a teenager will actually do it before they put their phone down.

As you log chapters, your progress bar fills up. Your total chapter count climbs. And your streak grows every day you log at least one chapter in any challenge.

The Leaderboard

Here’s where it gets social.

Every reader on The Dig shows up on a global leaderboard, ranked by total chapters logged. Your youth group kids can see exactly where they stand against each other — and against kids from other churches doing the same challenges.

If your church has a group subscription (more on that in a minute), your kids also get a private leaderboard showing just your church group. That local competition is often more motivating than the global one — they know these people, they sit next to them at youth group, and they very much want to be ahead of them.

Badges

On top of the leaderboard there’s a badge system. Badges are awarded for things like:

• Logging your first chapter ever
• Hitting 7, 30, and 60 active days
• Completing a specific challenge (each one has its own badge)
• Reading 50, 100, 200, and 500 total chapters
• Completing multiple challenges in one season

Locked badges show up greyed out so kids can see what they’re working toward. That visible locked badge is sometimes more motivating than the one they’ve already earned.

The Covenant

One thing that was important to me from the start was integrity. It’s an honor system — there’s no way to verify that someone actually read what they logged. But there’s a moment before you ever check off your first chapter where you’re asked to sign your name to a simple commitment:

“This challenge runs on honesty. No one’s checking your work — that’s between you and God. By signing below, you commit to only logging what you’ve actually read.”

It’s not a lock. But it’s a moment of intention. And for most teenagers, that moment matters more than we give them credit for.

Free for Individuals, Affordable for Groups

The Dig is completely free for individual readers. Anyone can go to thedig.bibledude.life, create an account, pick a challenge, and start logging. No credit card, no trial period, no catch.

For youth directors who want a private group leaderboard for their kids, a Church Group subscription is $30/year. That gets you a custom group code you share with your youth, a private parish leaderboard showing only your group, and a director dashboard to see who’s engaged. For a church budget, that’s less than a pizza party — and it’ll get you a lot more engagement than one.

Beyond Summer

The Summer Challenge is live right now, but The Dig isn’t going away in September. The plan is to run seasonal challenges throughout the year — an Advent reading challenge, a Lenten challenge, and others as the church calendar moves. The reading plans will rotate so there’s always something fresh to dig into, and the leaderboard and badge system carry over so the momentum you build this summer doesn’t disappear.

Get Your Youth Digging

If you’re a youth minister, here’s what I’d encourage you to do:

1. Go try it yourself first — thedig.bibledude.life. Sign up, pick a challenge, log a few chapters. Get a feel for it.
2. If it resonates, grab a group subscription and share the group code with your kids before summer gets going.
3. Mention it at your last youth group meeting before summer break. Make it a challenge. Tell them the leaderboard is live and you’re watching.

And if you’re a parent reading this — send the link to your teenager. You don’t have to pitch it hard. Just drop it in a text. “Hey, this looks kind of cool.” That’s enough.

The Word is worth digging into. And if a little friendly competition and a streak counter is what gets a teenager to open their Bible this summer, I’m completely okay with that.

Start your challenge at thedig.bibledude.life.

The Dig is a free tool built by BibleDude.life. Church Group subscriptions are $30/year. Questions? Reach out to me here.

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.

“I have said these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them.

“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.

John 15:26-16:4

the sermon:

Last week, we were in the upper room with Jesus on the night before his death, learning about prayer and open hands.

Today, on the Sunday after the Ascension, we’re standing outside, looking up at an empty sky. He’s gone. The Spirit hasn’t come yet. And the disciples are just… standing there.

That’s not an unfamiliar place for all of us today.

Most of us, at some time (maybe even right now), have stood in the gap between a promise we believe and a fulfillment we haven’t seen yet.

Between the diagnosis and the treatment.
Between the prayer and the answer.
Between the life we had and the life we’re heading towards.

It can be a really uncomfortable place to sit. And wait. 

Last week, we talked about praying with open hands. Today, I want to talk about what we do while we wait.

the promise in the gap

So let’s go back to that upper room during  the Last Supper. What we explored last week was Jesus’s final instruction in what’s called his Farewell Discourse. This week’s Gospel reading is part of that Farewell Discourse, and Jesus leans into a promise that will guide and sustain them after he is physically gone.

He starts by saying,

“When the Advocate comes,”

I’m going to stop right here for a moment. The word here is Paraklētos, which is sometimes translated into English as Advocate. It’s the one called alongside. In Jewish tradition, it’s your defense counsel.

St. Basil of Caesarea refers to the Spirit as constant companion… not the one you call when things get bad. But He’s the one who is already there, already alongside, already at work before you know you need Him.

It’s even better than Morgan & Morgan or Dan Newlin!

It’s a pretty good picture of who the Holy Spirit is, but by itself it’s still incomplete.

The other way that word is translated into English is Comforter. John Calvin talks about this in his Commentary on John, and he says that this title is important because Jesus knows that the disciples are about to face grief, loss, and persecution.

And he notes that comfort in Scripture never means the removal of difficulty, but the strengthening of the person within it. In Latin, he used the word fortis, which means strong, powerful, courageous. It’s the root of our English words like fortitude and effort. 

The Comforter makes you strong enough to bear what you couldn’t bear alone.

Together, these two words Advocate and Comforter start painting a picture of the Holy Spirit. But then Jesus describes Him further by saying,

“The Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.”

This Spirit of truth isn’t bringing a new truth, but is bringing witness to truth already embodied in Jesus. 

And as we also testify to this truth, we’re not doing it independently. We’re doing it alongside the Holy Spirit. When we speak faithfully about Christ, it’s not just a human act. We do it in full participation with God the Holy Spirit, our Comforter and Advocate.

And then Jesus does something that might surprise us. He follows that beautiful promise with a warning. 

the warning they needed to hear

He says to them,

“I have said these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me.”

Here Jesus is pointing them to all the things that’ll happen in order to prepare them. The word in there for falling away or offended or stumble is skandalon, which translates best as a stumbling block, a trap, something that causes you to fall.

Jesus is pre-emptively removing the skandalon of the persecution by naming it before it happens. If they know it’s coming, they won’t trip over it when it arrives.

This is crazy! I get the picture in my head of Jesus calling his shots… like Babe Ruth pointing his bat towards the outfield after two strikes in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series just before he sends the ball deep into the center field bleachers for a massive home run.

For the disciples, Jesus naming the persecution like that would make His promises more credible. He knew it. He said so. Which means he also meant what he said about the Comforter.

Jesus even says specifically, “an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.”

It makes me wonder what the disciples thought when they saw a man named Saul coming into town, present at the stoning of Stephen (the first deacon), giving his approval. The same Saul who would later have his own transformation experience on the road to Damascus, eventually writing a large portion of the New Testament.

I’m certain they would have remembered these words of Jesus while witnessing it happen right in front of their eyes.

In that moment, imagine the resolve that would have risen up inside of them. Imagine the confidence and strength that would have grown in their testimony. 

And this is how the Spirit works, He advocates by forming people whose lives bear witness to the truth. It’s defense through transformation, not debate or superior argument. This completely reframes what it means to respond to a hostile world.

And then Jesus says something that holds all of this together.

remember

“I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them.”

Here, Jesus is giving them exactly what they need to return to when everything else feels like it’s falling apart.

St. Augustine explores this in his Confessions, saying that memory isn’t merely the storage of past events. It’s the place where God is encountered in the present. He says that the memory of Jesus’s words is a form of ongoing presence.

The Desert Fathers from around the 3rd century had a practice they called melete, which was a murmuring, a ruminating, and turning the text over until it became part of you. It was formation through repetition. So when a crisis hits, the remembered word is already in the body, already available as an anchor. 

We encounter the same thing through the rhythms of the Book of Common Prayer. In it, Thomas Cranmer essentially built a memory-formation system. The same texts, the same prayers, the same rhythms, year after year, so they’re available when you need them.

Dr. Robert Crouse talks about the disciples during the post-Ascension time, saying that their standing around and gazing up into heaven isn’t wrong in their looking up. Rather, they were wrong to stay there. 

He points out, as we see in our text today, that Jesus has already given them what they need to stop gazing and start living. 

The memory of His words is the thing that moves them from the field back into the upper room, back into prayer, back into community.

So what does it look like to live in this gap? Peter has a pretty good answer for that from our New Testament Reading today.

the shape of the in-between

He starts by saying,

“The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers.”

As we explored last week, with open hands, we pray in His name with great confidence, “thy will be done, thy kingdom come…”

And when we pray in alignment with His will, with the Holy Spirit alongside us, we are free to pray and love and serve without the burden of securing our own future, as we are safely nestled in His presence. 

Peter continues,

“Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining.”

Some translations say it like this, “have fervent charity among yourselves.”

And that word fervent, means stretched out, strained, or at full extension. In other words, this isn’t casual affection. It’s not doing something because you’re already practically doing it anyway. It’s a love that actually costs something. It’s being a blessing to someone, even when you don’t feel like it.

It’s a sacrificial love, reminiscent of the sacrifice Christ made for us on the Cross.

And Peter says,

“Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.”

God’s manifold, or many-colored, or variegated grace… God’s grace comes in more varieties than we can catalog. Every gift in the community is a different color of the same grace.

And being good stewards of that grace means that we’re using what we’ve been given, not hoarding it or waiting until conditions are perfect.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together points out that these practices aren’t obligations imposed from the outside. They’re the natural expression, he says, of people who have genuinely internalized the Gospel.

Prayer, hospitality, the use of our gifts for one another… this is what the in-between community looks like when it’s functioning as Jesus intended.

conclusion

Last week I told you the victory was already won. The peace was already given. The Father was already leaning toward you.

Today I want to leave you with this.

You are not standing in an empty gap. The Paraclete is already alongside you — not waiting to be summoned, not arriving only in the crisis, but already there, already at work, already making you strong enough for what you couldn’t bear alone.

The memory of what Jesus said is your anchor. The prayers you’ve prayed in this place, the rhythms of this liturgy, the words you’ve spoken together year after year — they’re already in you. They’ll be there when you need them.

So don’t just stand there gazing up at the sky.

Pray. Love at full extension. Deploy the grace you’ve been given in every color it comes in.

The Spirit is already here.

Take heart.

On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but will tell you plainly of the Father. On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf, for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.”

His disciples said, “Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! Now we know that you know all things and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have said this to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution, but take courage: I have conquered the world!”

John 16:23-33

the sermon:

Welcome, and Happy Rogation Day!

I know that you’ve probably had this day marked on your calendar as a big one, up there with Christmas and Easter.

No?

Yeah… most of us didn’t grow up with Rogation Sunday on our calendars. But the tradition points at something we all desperately need. 

It comes from the Latin rogare (roh-GAH-reh), which simply means “to ask,” maybe with a hint of “to beg.” And this Sunday, the whole arc of the lectionary is moving us to think honestly about what it means to ask God for anything at all.

If we’re honest, most of us have a complicated relationship with prayer.

We believe in it.
But, we’re not always sure it works.

We do it, and then feel guilty that we don’t do it more, or more faithfully, or with more confidence.

What does Jesus actually mean when he says, “ask, and you will receive?”

the invitation

This is the very question Jesus answers in our Gospel reading for today.

Let me set the stage first. It’s the evening of the Last Supper, just hours before he’s betrayed, arrested, and crucified. He’s well aware that this is His last opportunity to prepare the disciples on what life looks like after He’s gone.

And it’s in that moment, these final instructions, that He gives His closest friends the most intimate gift He can… direct access to the Father.

Ask in my name.
Ask and receive.
That your joy may be full.

That term “in my name,” in the original language is en tō onomati mou. And it’s not about a formula to get whatever you’re asking for. It’s more about a relational union with who Jesus is. To ask in his name is to ask in alignment with his character and will. 

So it’s not a “me” request, like “Father, please let me win the Powerball this week, and I promise to give 10% to the church. In Jesus’ name!”

And there’s nothing wrong with asking for things, what we call a petition. But it really only makes sense when adoration and surrender come first. Prayer makes most sense when it begins with orientation towards the One who is already our peace. 

Thomas Merton once wrote, 

“The value of our prayer is not to be measured by the feelings it produces in us… [but] is to be found in the fact that it is an orientation of our whole being to God.”

St. Augustine takes it even further in his Letter to Proba, essentially saying (paraphrasing) that prayer enlarges our capacity to receive what God already desires to give; the asking stretches the heart to hold the joy intended for us.

Just as Jesus said, “that your joy may be full.”

That word “full” in the original language points to a joy brought to its completion, not a fleeting happiness, but more like fulfillment. 

All this because, as Jesus says, “the Father himself loves you.” This approach to prayer isn’t about earning access. The Father is already leaning toward us.

the honest problem

Sounds amazing, right? 

But this is where it starts getting real for the disciples. They get this great insight from their Teacher and Master, and they think they’ve arrived, saying:

“Now we know that you know all things…”

They’re confident; ready to take on the world.

And then Jesus dismantles it. He says to them:

“Do you now believe? The hour is coming… you will be scattered. [You] will leave me alone.”

That scattering… It’s not like a strategic retreat as they go out on mission to plant and grow the Church. It’s more like being scattered like sheep. 

The trials and tribulations they’ll experience will shake them up and send them running for the hills.

Here’s the thing, the disciples were overconfident. And I get that! There’s this almost universal pattern as humans where we believe that comprehension is the same as transformation.

But Jesus flat out tells them, that’s cute, but you’re about to get shook.

Boxing legend Mike Tyson probably said it best when he was asked about his opponent’s “plan” for fighting him. He said:

“Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face.”

It’s very different thinking you know something, until you have to live it out.

One of the Early Church Fathers, John Chrysostom, preached about this in his Homilies on John. He says that the disciples made the mistake of confusing the hearing of truth with the possession of it. They believe they understand, but their understanding hasn’t been tested by experience. 

He makes the case that Jesus allows the scattering precisely because it’ll deepen their faith in ways that undisturbed confidence never could. Tribulation isn’t the enemy of faith, it’s the kiln.

Here’s the thing. There will be times in our lives when we feel like we’re going through the unimaginable and that God’s not there (or not listening). In those moments, even praying at all is an act of faith.

And Jesus knows that. He sees it coming. And he doesn’t leave it there. 

peace and tribulation

He says to them (v. 33):

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

There are a few things happening in this verse that I want to draw your attention to. 

First, Jesus says, “in me you will have peace.”

This peace we find, we find in Him. This is relational. It’s through our proximity and connection to Christ that we find peace.

And we find an echo of this in the BCP’s Collect for Peace, which is part of Evening Prayer. It goes like this:

“Most holy God, the source of all good desires, all right judgements, and all just works: Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give…”

This distinguishes God’s peace from the world’s peace.

Listen, we all know that the things of this world can bring us a certain level of peace. And it’s not unusual to try to find that peace in lots of things… money, social approval, control, relationships, achievement, health… I can go on, but I think you get the idea.

And it’s not that these things are bad. The problem isn’t the things. It’s the weight we put on them. It’s the belief that they can deliver something they were never designed to provide.

But the peace we find in Jesus, the peace which the world cannot give, that’s where we find wholeness, right relationship, completeness.

In the original language, this peace isn’t the absence of conflict or tribulation. But it’s His presence with us in the middle of it.

In this statement, Jesus follows that up by encouraging the disciples (and us) to take heart, because He has overcome the world.

The original language grammar here is interesting too. It’s more accurately, I have already overcome. It’s a completed action with ongoing results. The victory is already accomplished, not still pending.

So Jesus is telling them to take heart, or be of good cheer, or have courage, because it is finished.

This is an Easter sentence if there ever was one. We’re still in the Easter season, still living inside the reality of an empty tomb. “I have already overcome” is just another way of saying He is risen.

Julian of Norwich, writing in the middle of her own intense suffering, captured it this way: 

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” 

That’s not a denial of her circumstance. That’s someone who has staked everything on the same finished victory Jesus is describing.

And that changes how we pray.

open hands

Henri Nouwen, in his book With Open Hands, explores this idea of how we pray. He says that we often come to God in prayer with clenched fists, clutching what we want, what we fear, what we demand.

He says that prayer is really the slow, and sometimes difficult, work of opening our hands. When Jesus says, “ask in my name,” it’s more about receiving on His terms, rather than demanding on ours.

But that means we need to release control, and trust that God really has overcome it all. And that can be a scary place for us.

So Nouwen suggests a prayer something like this:

“Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.”

This all really starts digging into the core of who we are, and Whose we are.

Our prayers become less about what we want and more about aligning ourselves with His heart.

It looks like the Lord’s Prayer prayed slowly, rather than being recited quickly without even thinking about it:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

In fact, when we get to that point in the prayers today, I’d like to slow the pace so that we can marinate in it just a little longer.

conclusion

The ancient Rogation tradition had a beautiful practice where the congregation would physically walk the parish boundaries together, stopping to pray, and asking God for what was needed.

It wasn’t a magic ritual.
It wasn’t a performance.

But it was a whole community, together, opening their hands to receive from the Lord.

And that’s what Jesus is inviting us into today. Not a better prayer technique, or more confidence, or more discipline, or more feeling.

Just open hands.

A community that walks and asks and trusts together.

The victory is already won. The peace is already given. And the Father is already leaning toward us.

Let us pray.

Lord of all good desires, we come to you this morning with open hands. Not demanding. Not performing. Just asking, in the name of the one who has already overcome, that you would receive us as we are, form us as you will, and send us out as doers of your word. Amen.

It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.

“He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth.”

When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

1 Peter 2:19-25

the sermon:

I remember a time when I worked in the corporate world when I felt like I was doing all the right things, but I still got the short end of the stick.

I worked hard, earned the respect of my peers, and always looked for ways to improve how we worked. And when a certain promotion came up, everyone who knew me assured me that I was by far the most qualified, and that I was a shoo-in for the role.

Someone else got it.

In fact, what I got was a trip to the corporate office (where my boss worked) so that he could tell me, “Dan, I know you love your family and all, but don’t let that get in the way of your career. You really do have a lot to offer.”

I was dumbfounded. I’d tried to be a genuine bright spot everywhere I went, and apparently that was exactly the problem.

Has anyone else ever been told, in one way or another, that who you are is the obstacle?

the world peter is writing into

Now, I want to be careful here. My story is one of frustration and disappointment. What Peter is writing to is something considerably harder.

In our reading today from Peter’s letter to the Church scattered across Asia Minor, likely written during the reign of Nero, Christians faced real hostility, real social rupture, and in some cases, very real persecution.

Rome called them atheists, not because they had no faith, but because their faith had no idol Rome could recognize.

And in those times, there was a code people followed. Peter is specifically speaking to the Haustafel, the Greco-Roman household structure for organizing social ethics. In this structure, it was the paterfamilias, usually the oldest living male, who had absolute legal authority over the extended household.

Peter works through this structure deliberately: governing authorities, then servants, then wives and husbands. He’s not skipping around. He’s moving through the architecture of daily life.

So when someone converted to Christianity without the paterfamilias converting, they were stepping outside the household’s religious identity. That’s not a small thing. That’s social rupture.

Peter isn’t endorsing this system. He’s speaking pastorally into this situation that his readers can’t immediately change.

charis and the two kinds of suffering

Into this structure, Peter starts by talking to the household servants, saying:

“It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.”

Pay attention to what’s happening here. The term often translated here as “a credit” or “commendable” is charis, in the original Greek. It’s accurate, but it really loses something significant. Throughout the rest of the New Testament, it’s the primary word for grace. And Peter uses it twice here, bracketing this whole instruction.

Listen to me. He’s not saying that suffering is good. He’s saying that God doesn’t abandon you inside it.

The grace is not in the suffering itself. It’s in who is present with you in it.

And he’s even calling out the idea of enduring suffering when you do wrong.

Sometimes, our suffering is something that happens because of our own choices or sin. That’s consequence. That’s the natural weight of our own choices.

What Peter is saying here is that suffering that comes from doing good, from living as a Christian, that carries charis. Grace is present and active within it.

Enduring unjust suffering while keeping your eyes on God isn’t just admirable behavior. It’s walking in something divinely graced.

called, hypogrammos, and paradidomi

“For to this you have been called…”

…Peter writes in verse 21. I love that he used that word, called.

When I began my discernment process for eventually being ordained as a deacon in the church, there were several levels of ensuring that I and the church were certain about my calling.

And Peter is using that same idea here, but not just for ordained people. He’s writing to household servants when he talks about calling.

Open a Book of Common Prayer to page 855.

This is from our Outline of the Faith (commonly called the Catechism). There’s a question and answer there that I want us to look at together.

Q. Who are the ministers of the Church?
A. The ministers of the Church are the lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons.

In my training, I learned that with everything in the Book of Common Prayer, order is important. If there is a list of things, the first one in the list is the ideal option. So notice that in our Outline of the Faith, the first ones listed as the ministers of the Church are the lay persons.

Peter is speaking to this idea. He’s recognizing that the way we live our lives is a ministry to the people around us.

And here’s my favorite part of this. Peter writes:

“…because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.”

This idea of following Christ’s example, the word used here is hypogrammos. This is the only time this word shows up in the New Testament, and it literally describes a writing tablet students traced to learn their letters. Peter could have used any word for example or model. He chose this one.

What Peter is saying is that Christ is the pattern, and that we trace the shape of his life with our own.

Listen carefully. You’re not generating your own original response to suffering. You’re following the pattern that’s already been made.

There’s one more thing I want you to see to help understand this pattern.

In verse 23, Peter writes:

“When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.”

The word I want you to see in there is paradidomi. It’s not a, “He was handed over.” It’s, “He handed Himself over.”

It’s a posture of deep trust in the God who judges justly.

isaiah 53 and the Shepherd

That line, and the rest of verses 22-25 there, are heavy in Isaiah 53 language. You could even say that Peter is making a theological argument that Jesus is the Suffering Servant that Isaiah foresaw.

And he carries it by suggesting that the people who follow Jesus are invited into that same servant identity.

Watch how Peter lands this idea, straight from the Isaiah 53 text.

“For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”

Psalm 23, which is also our Psalm for this week, has three movements worth naming here.

First, shepherd. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

Second, valley. “Even though I walk through the darkest valley… you are with me.”

And third, table. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

Notice the posture shift. The Psalm begins talking about God. Then, when the valley comes, it shifts to talking to God. You are with me.

And where does it land? At the table.

Not a table of escape. A table of presence. In the middle of everything.

When we come to this altar during the Eucharist, we come bringing all of our brokenness, our suffering, everything we’re carrying. And we meet him there.

The one who was broken for us.

the third way

I love how Peter handles all of this.

He doesn’t deny or minimize the suffering. He also doesn’t baptize the unjust system that produces it, either.

Instead, he offers a third way. Endure it with dignity, trusting the outcome to a God who sees and judges justly, and recognize that Christ has already walked this exact path ahead of us.

We don’t need to make this up as we go. The pattern is already there. We’re merely tracing the lines that have already been laid down.

Tertullian, one of the early Church Fathers, wrote to Christians under Roman persecution around A.D. 200, and his words are worth hearing here. He writes about how Christians who are suffering unjustly aren’t losing. Rather, they’re bearing witness by a different set of rules than what the empire is playing by.

Almost 200 years after that, John Chrysostom preached a series on 1 Peter in which he leans into the charis language. He says that the Christian calculus of honor was genuinely inverted from the Roman world’s calculus.

In a culture where social shame was devastating, Chrysostom told his congregations in Antioch that what looks like humiliation from the outside is, in God’s economy, the location of real grace.

That was true in Antioch in the fourth century.

It was true for household servants in Asia Minor in the first.

And it’s true for us today.

So in just a few minutes, when we come forward to this altar, I want to invite you to bring it. Bring the thing that’s been done to you that wasn’t fair. Bring the promotion you deserved and didn’t get. Bring the relationship that ground you down. Bring the suffering that came not from your own choices but simply from trying to live with integrity in a world that doesn’t always reward that.

Bring it, and lay it down with the One who meets you here.

The One who was broken for us.

The Shepherd and Guardian of our souls.

Who has already walked every step of this path ahead of us.

By his wounds, you have been healed.

Each taunt a jab at his identity… “If you are the Son of God…”

The religious leaders, bystanders, and even the criminals crucified next to him all threw insults at Him.

And it was at that moment when He cried out with a loud voice…

“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”

Which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

This isn’t the first time these words show up. It’s the opening line of Psalm 22, a plea for deliverance from suffering and hostility.

In His darkest moment, Jesus reached for His prayer book.

And while the words he shared were few, those who were there — His followers, the religious leaders who put Him on that cross, those passing by — they would have recognized that line immediately.

In Jewish practice in that time, quoting the opening line of a Psalm like that was understood to invoke the entire Psalm.

By verse 24, it gets to… 

“For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but he heard when I cried to him.”

And by the end it becomes a song of praise and proclamation to future generations.

This cry… It’s not a failure of faith. It’s actually faith in its most honest and raw form. 

Even in the feeling of desperation and aloneness, he still says, “My God.”

He’s not renouncing the relationship, He’s leaning into it.

Martin Luther had a word he used for this feeling of suffering. He called it Anfechtung. It’s something like “spiritual assault” or “the terror of feeling Godforsaken.” It’s something he’s experienced many times throughout his life.

I remember a time in my life when I felt abandoned.

My first son was 17-months old. My baby boy. And the day after my second Father’s Day, we took him to the doctor where we received a Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis. It rocked us to the very core of our being.

At first, I had to be the strong one. I didn’t have time to process. Someone had to stay clear-minded enough to drive us to and from doctors and hospitals and eventually get us all home.

A day or so after getting settled back in at home, my wife and son were both napping. I stood in our kitchen, and something inside me just broke. Every feeling, fear, and sense of despair flooded in all at once.

Anfechtung.

I dropped to the floor, and sat there in the fetal position, just crying. 

At first, it was hard enough to even breathe under the pressure of it all. And then the words came out, almost involuntarily…

Why, God?

And in that cry, I couldn’t feel Him near me at all. But I still cried out to Him.

And I’ve wondered since then… was God actually there? Could He have been?

In the third century, Origen explores this idea, pointing out that the forsakenness that Jesus experienced was real in its felt quality, but was not a metaphysical rupture.

In other words, he understands that the eternal union between the Son and the Father could never be severed. So Jesus was never alone in that moment, even when He felt otherwise.

Origen says that Jesus entered the full human experience of spiritual desolation so that humans might never have to face it alone.

I’ll say that again… So that we will never have to face it alone.

And that’s where Jesus is.

Hanging on that cross, taking on the weight of the sin of the whole world, carrying unimaginable pain, and feeling abandoned.

Anfechtung.

He cries out, “My God.”

The relationship holds, even when the feeling doesn’t. When everything else is stripped away, there’s still “my God.”

And that’s what faith looks like sometimes.

No certainty that everything is going to be okay.
No comfort.

Just a voice in the dark, aimed at God.

That day, as I sat completely broken on my kitchen floor, I couldn’t imagine what the next day — the next moment — would look like. 

And as I look back on one of the hardest days of my life, I can see now what I couldn’t see then.

He was with me.

Huddled next to me in the fetal position, crying with me…

“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”

—

Note: This was written as a reflection for a Good Friday service at St. Edward’s Episcopal Church called “The Seven Last Words” reflecting on the seven last statements of Jesus before He died on the Cross.