Pip: If you've ever wondered what pesto, the Cold War, and the Book of Isaiah have in common, Fr. John has done the research, and the answer is more coherent than it has any right to be.
Mara: This episode follows a single sermon that moves from the origins of a national motto to the harder question underneath it — the difference between believing in God and actually trusting God. Let's start with that journey from Virgil's kitchen to the gates of Jerusalem.
Sermon: Trusting God or Just Saying So
Pip: The sermon opens with a question about national identity, but it's really asking something more uncomfortable — whether "In God We Trust" is a conviction or just text printed on currency.
Mara: The setup begins in an unexpected place. Virgil, writing a pesto recipe around 50 BC, produced the phrase that became America's first de facto motto. As the sermon puts it: "out of many, a single color — color est e pluribus unus — and if we shorten that and add proper grammar, we have the phrase e pluribus unum, which the founding fathers added to the Great Seal of the United States in 1782."
Pip: So the founding motto was essentially a salad metaphor. And it held for over 170 years until the Cold War made atheism the enemy and "In God We Trust" became the official counter-move in 1956.
Mara: That shift sets up the sermon's real question. The motto changed, but the sermon asks whether the trust behind it changed with it. And the answer comes through Hezekiah, king of Judah around 700 BC.
Pip: Hezekiah is a useful case study because he's not a villain. He kept the religious observances, ran the temple, did the visible things — and yet Isaiah records God saying, essentially, I've had enough of your burnt offerings.
Mara: The problem was that Hezekiah believed in God but didn't trust him. When Assyria threatened, he sought an alliance with Egypt instead. The sermon quotes Isaiah directly: "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many — but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord."
Pip: It took the Assyrian army standing outside Jerusalem's gates before Hezekiah actually prayed. Which is a very human timeline for getting serious about trust.
Mara: And the sermon draws that line straight to the gospel. Jesus's invitation to "take my yoke" gets read not as shared labor with a partner, but as a replacement — setting down the yoke of sin, self, and fear, and picking up the yoke of discipleship instead.
Pip: The question the sermon lands on is precise: not "do you believe?" — the congregation already answered that by showing up — but "do you trust him enough to remove all those yokes and put on his?"
Mara: It closes with Thomas Merton's prayer, which holds the tension honestly: "I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me." Trust, the sermon argues, doesn't require certainty. It requires the desire to follow, and Merton's prayer suggests that desire itself is already a form of faithfulness.
Pip: In God We Trust — lip service or a way of life. That's the question left sitting in the pew.
Mara: The thread running through all of this is the gap between profession and practice — saying the words and living the weight of them.
Pip: Belief is the easy part, apparently. Trust is where it gets costly. We'll see what Candle in a Cave brings next time.
Of all the places to begin a sermon, a cooking recipe seems like a far reach…but things happen. The recipe I have in mind was written about 50 years or so before the birth of Jesus. The author? The Roman poet Virgil. What is the recipe for? Pesto.
Virgil was writing down a recipe for pesto, but I suppose, being a poet and all, he couldn’t just say, “Add four cloves of garlic, so many leaves of basil, and half a cup of olive oil.” No, that would not do. And he certainly wouldn’t say, “Mash it all together until you have a green paste.” Instead, Virgil wrote, “They one by one do lose/Their proper powers, and out of many comes/A single colour, not entirely green…”
In Latin, “out of many, a single color” is color est e pluribus unus. If we shorten that and add proper grammar, we have the phrase e pluribus unum, which the founding fathers added to the Great Seal of the United States in 1782. Therefore, the de facto national motto of the United States of America did not speak of how great and mighty a nation we were. Instead, it essentially declared that we, as the United States of America, are a salad—a bunch of ingredients, tossed together and pounded into something new and tasty.
It was the unofficial official motto and remained in place until 1956, when it officially changed. You can blame that change on the Soviet Union and the Cold War.
In the USSR, if there was a state religion, it was atheism, and the leaders of our nation looked for many ways to distinguish the USA from them. One of those ways was changing the de facto motto from e pluribus unum to In God We Trust. Unlike the battle cry of the Crusaders, “Deus vult” (God wills it), “In God We Trust” was meant to be a humble recognition of our reliance on a loving God. It is the kind of reliance and trust that the Psalmist speaks of.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright. (Psalm 20:7-8)
So, my question to you on this day, when our nation is 250 years old and one day is this: We declare In God We Trust, but do we really, corporately and individually, or is it just like when we slap our money down on the counter and say, In God We Trust, and here’s 100 bucks in case that doesn’t work out?
Understand, the question is not about belief or faith. I’m not asking whether you believe in God or have faith in God. I’m asking whether you trust God. Isaiah shows the problem clearly.
Hezekiah was king of Judah around 700 BC. He is considered one of the better kings; however, there were several major problems, none of which was their belief in God. The first chapter of Isaiah clearly shows that they were still practicing their religion. Yet God is tired of it because they outwardly serve him while inwardly they are corrupt.
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? (Isaiah 1:11-12)
That is the first problem. They do everything they are supposed to do, but in short, they are not practicing what they preach.
The second major problem is that they do not trust God. They believe in God, but they do not trust him.
At the time, the Assyrians were the dominant power, and to keep on good terms with them and avoid complete conquest, the nations paid tribute. However, when there was a shift in power in Assyria, Hezekiah and his royal court sought to free themselves from Assyrian rule and attempted to form an alliance with Egypt. The Lord says through Isaiah, “Don’t be stupid.”
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord! The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. (Isaiah 31:1, 3a)
Yet it wasn’t until the Assyrian army had conquered all of Judah and stood outside the gates of Jerusalem that Hezekiah repented and truly trusted in God. He prayed, “O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.” (Isaiah 37:20)
Hezekiah believed in the Lord, and Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, and the Lord, for his part, sent one of his angels: “The angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.” (Isaiah 37:36)
At the end of our gospel reading today, Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Many understand this yoke to be the type designed for two animals that would pull as a team. From this, we can picture ourselves yoked to Jesus, and with Him, we can complete the work. It is a good message, and I have preached it myself. However, this is more of a contemporary understanding of the passage. Not wrong, but perhaps there is a better understanding.
Consider what Jesus said just a short time before: “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:38) These are actions required of the individual. This is what it means to be his disciple: do what the master did. Therefore, to take Jesus’ yoke upon us is another way of saying this. We all wear a yoke of some kind—the yoke of sin, self, and fear. Jesus is saying to set those aside and take up His yoke of righteousness, forgiveness, and eternal life. Take up His yoke of discipleship. In our attempt to do as He asks, we face the same question Hezekiah and the Israelites faced: Do you trust God?
Do you trust God enough to set aside sin, to set aside the things of the world, to set aside self, your will, and your ego? I know you believe in Jesus. I don’t think you would be here if you didn’t, but do you trust him enough to remove all those yokes and put on his?
In God we trust. That can either be lip service or a way of life. Take on the yoke of Jesus and walk with God. The author of Proverbs writes,
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Trust in the Lord, and you will find healing and refreshment; you will find rest for your soul, for His burden is light.
Let us pray (a deeply honest prayer from Thomas Merton): My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
“Saints Peter and Paul in a vestibule,” etching by Rombout Eynhoudts after Peter Paul Rubens, circa 1630-80 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples on several occasions. Toward the end of Luke’s Gospel, we hear of the disciples on the road to Emmaus:
That same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them, but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”
Later, in the Acts of the Apostles, we read that Jesus appeared to Paul as he was on the road to Damascus:
“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but he could see nothing when he opened his eyes.
The Gospels record several instances when Jesus appeared to Peter. Today we read of his restoration. There is also a legend of Jesus appearing to Peter many years later.
Peter eventually made his way to Rome, and after a time, one of the persecutions of the Christian church began. The legend picks up:
His friends, so runs the story, had entreated the Apostle to save his life by leaving the city. Peter finally consented, but on the condition that he should go away alone. But when he wished to pass the city gate, he saw Christ meeting him. Falling down in adoration, he said to Him, ‘Lord, whither goest Thou?’ And Christ replied, ‘I am coming to Rome to be again crucified.’ And Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, wilt Thou again be crucified?’ And the Lord said to him, ‘Even so, I will again be crucified.’ Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, I will return and will follow Thee.’ And with these words, the Lord ascended into Heaven.
The encounter on the road out of Rome gave Peter the courage to return to Rome and face his death, which Jesus also spoke of in our Gospel: “When you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” You will stretch out your hands—you will be crucified.
Today, I have a question for you. Three different encounters and three different roads. Jesus asked, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” Jesus asked, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Jesus said, “I am coming to Rome to be again crucified.”
Now imagine, if you will: you are walking down an old dirt road in Oklahoma. It is pleasantly warm, the sun is beginning to set, and you are at peace, simply enjoying your time, when you encounter Jesus. You say a little prayer: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
Pip: There's a Peanuts cartoon that opens a sermon, and somehow it leads directly to eternal life — which is either a bold homiletical move or proof that Lucy van Pelt has always been theologically underrated.
Mara: This episode covers one sermon from Fr. John, working through what it means to be part of a body where every gift counts — not just the ones delivered from a pulpit.
Pip: Let's start with the sermon itself, and the question of who actually does the work of the church.
Empowered for the Mission — Every Gift Counts
Mara: The sermon is built around a deceptively simple question: if not everyone is called to preach or heal or cast out demons, what exactly is everyone else doing in the mission of God?
Pip: The answer comes from the tail end of Matthew 10, Jesus wrapping up his instructions to the twelve before sending them out. The setup is that hardship is guaranteed — and so is help from unexpected quarters.
Mara: The sermon lands the key line directly from that passage: "Whoever receives you, receives me, and whoever receives me, receives the Father." The argument is that welcoming and supporting those who carry the mission makes you a participant in it.
Pip: Which is a genuinely generous theological claim — you don't have to be the one casting out demons to get credit for the demon-casting.
Mara: Two Old Testament figures anchor that claim. Elijah and the widow of Zarephath: she shares her last flour and oil, and the jar never empties. Later, her son dies and Elijah raises him. Elisha and the Shunammite woman: she feeds him whenever he passes through, and Elisha promises her a son she had stopped hoping for.
Pip: Both women receive what the sermon calls the prophet's reward — not because they prophesied, but because they made the prophet's work possible.
Mara: Paul's letter to the Corinthians supplies the structural argument: "There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good."
Mara: The upshot is that no single gift runs the whole operation. The apostles need the widow's flour. The prophet needs the Shunammite's hospitality. The body needs every member.
Pip: And the sermon loops back to Lucy at this point — those five fingers, individually nothing, curled together into something formidable. It is, against all odds, the correct analogy.
Mara: Archbishop Michael Ramsey gets the closing description of what that body looks like across centuries: "Human lives united to Jesus, receiving his presence, and showing his goodness, his love, his sacrifice, his humility and his compassion. Living stones."
Pip: The sermon closes by naming the stakes beyond the prophet's reward — Christ's reward, forgiveness and resurrection, the food that does not perish. The call is direct: find where your gift fits, and get to work.
Mara: The harvest line from Luke lands as the final push: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few." Every laborer counts, regardless of what kind of laboring they do.
Pip: One sermon, but the argument keeps widening — from twelve apostles to a widow's jar to every person sitting in a pew wondering if they have anything to offer.
Mara: The answer the sermon gives is yes, unambiguously. The body needs what you have. More on that territory next time.
In a Peanuts cartoon, Lucy demands that Linus change the TV channel and then threatens him with her fist if he doesn’t. “What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?” asks Linus. “These five fingers,” says Lucy. “Individually, they are nothing, but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold.” “What channel do you want?” asks Linus. Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says, “Why can’t you guys get organized like that?”
My initial reaction to today’s Gospel reading was to shake my head at the liturgical committee that chose it. There is no time, context, audience, or anything provided in the reading to help us understand. So let’s begin by setting the scene, which is a little easier if you were here last week, because this week’s reading is part of that same conversation.
The audience Jesus is speaking to is the twelve apostles, and he is giving them instructions because He is about to send them out.
At the beginning of the chapter, Matthew 10, where our reading is located, we are told, “Jesus called to him his twelve apostles and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction” (Matthew 10:1). Jesus gives them instruction on their travels and what to expect: “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16), and also tells them to “have no fear” (Matthew 10:26) for they are of great worth to their Father in heaven.
Then comes our lesson from last week. Jesus tells them that the message they carry will not bring peace but division, saying, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34b).
Today’s Gospel is the conclusion of the apostles’ marching orders, and it can be seen as encouragement, because Jesus tells them that as they go and experience the hardships along the way, there will be people who never preach a sermon, never cast out a demon, never heal the sick, yet by welcoming, encouraging, and supporting Christ’s servants they become participants in the very mission of God. “Whoever receives you, receives me, and whoever receives me, receives the Father.” Good. In other words, when someone receives you as my disciple, it will be like in times past when someone received and helped a prophet carry out their work. Elijah and Elisha provide two very good examples of this.
During the reign of King Ahab, he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord brought a drought upon the land, as Elijah had proclaimed. Afterward, the Lord sent Elijah to Zarephath. There, Elijah encountered a widow and asked her for a little something to eat and a drink of water. She responded that she had only a little flour in a jar, enough to make one small cake for her and her son to eat, after which they would die because of their poverty and the drought. Yet Elijah said, “Do not fear… The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth” (1 Kings 17:14), and it was done according to the word of Elijah. While the world around her suffered from the drought and went hungry, the widow and her son received the prophet’s reward and had plenty.
Later, the widow’s son died because of illness, yet because of her support and kindness to Elijah, the Lord raised the child from the dead through Elijah’s prayer.
Then there was Elisha, who frequently passed through the town of Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and each time Elisha passed through, she would feed and care for him. Elisha asked what could be done to repay her kindness. She would not say, but Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, told him that the woman was childless, even though she and her husband desired one. Hearing this, Elisha promised her the reward of a prophet: “At this season, about this time next year, you shall embrace a son.” (2 Kings 4:16) She was too afraid to believe it, but the following year she had a son.
When Jesus speaks to the disciples about the prophets’ reward and the righteous person’s reward, he says, “You will encounter hardships in following me and doing the Father’s will, but there will be those who help you. Because of their help, they too will receive a reward.”
Why? Not everyone can be called to be a prophet or a apostle, but all can assist the prophet or apostle in other ways.
Saint Paul tells us, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-7) And remember how, a little later, he asked a series of questions, “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?” (1 Corinthians 12:29), and so on. The answer is no. Not all are this or that, but each one has been empowered with gifts “for the common good.” That’s exactly the point Lucy was making, “These five fingers… Individually, they are nothing, but when I curl them together like this into a single unit…” This same principle applies to Elijah and Elisha, the apostles, and on down through history to us gathered here today. Is this true?
Do you know how many people I’ve asked from this congregation to come up here and preach? Do you know how many times, when I ask that question, the person looks at me as though I didn’t have the sense God gave a turnip? Yet that same person may have taken on another ministry in the church or an act of hospitality. Something I had no clue how to do.
Paul again says, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13) He is, of course, speaking of the church. When Jesus spoke of those who would receive a prophet’s reward or a righteous person’s reward, he was also speaking of the church, all of its members. This reward from God is not limited to the front person, the one in the dog collar and fancy robes. The reward is for the entire body of Christ, with each member exercising the gifts they have been empowered with.
A few weeks back, we spoke of our baptism and our entrance into the body of Christ. We then spoke of what it means to be loyal to God, not simply a passive relationship but one that is active in thought, word, and deed. Today, we understand that this active faith, as sons and daughters of God, is lived out in the Church, using the gifts we have been blessed with, both individually and corporately.
In The Canterbury Pilgrim, Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey speaks of the church as a building, which he then describes as a symbol of the Church formed by those who become the Body of Christ. Of this Body, Archbishop Ramsey captures exactly what Paul said, “Through the centuries this other Church—the Body of Christ—has stood: human lives united to Jesus, receiving his presence, and showing his goodness, his love, his sacrifice, his humility and his compassion. Living stones – what a mingling of metaphors! It tells of firm, solid, unmovable loyalty, and of persons alive in joy, in freedom, in creativity, in influence. This is the Church that Jesus Christ founded, the Church of which he said that the gates of death would never prevail against it.” (Glory Descending, Eerdmans, p.129)
This is the Church and the great work that takes place within these walls and within the Body of Christ. However, for our participation in it, there’s not just the prophet’s reward or the righteous person’s reward. Jesus says, “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40) Therefore, Jesus says, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.” (John 6:27) For us, there is more than the prophet’s or righteous person’s reward, there is Christ’s reward, the food that does not perish—the forgiveness of sins and eternal life on the last day.
In your life with God and your life in the Church, use the gifts you have been empowered with and work for Christ’s reward. No gift is too small. No gift is unnecessary. And by combining them, we become the church God desires us to be. Ask yourself, where can I put my gifts to work in the Body of Christ, and then get busy. You are needed, for “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few,” (Luke 10:2), and we may not all be apostles or prophets, but we are all laborers in this great Kingdom of our God.
Let us pray: Everliving God, whose will it is that all should come to you through your son Jesus Christ: Inspire our witness to him, that all may know the power of his forgiveness and the hope of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
Pip: There's a word in Hebrew that English can't quite hold — and a bear in Aesop's fables that apparently had something to say about it.
Mara: This episode covers one sermon from Fr. John, working through the Hebrew word hesed — covenant loyalty, steadfast love, mercy — and what it asks of us in return. Let's start with that word and what it actually means.
Sermon: Proper 7 RCL A — The Weight of Hesed
Mara: The sermon opens with an Aesop's fable about two travelers and a bear — one climbs a tree, one plays dead — and uses it to frame a question about loyalty. That question leads straight into the Hebrew word hesed, which the sermon argues is the hallmark of God's covenantal character.
Pip: And the definition comes from Strong's Concordance, which pulls no punches: "chesed saturates the Hebrew Scriptures as the hallmark of God's covenantal character and the standard for covenantal response among His people… Of its approximately 247 occurrences, over half lie in the Psalms, yet it shapes every major section of the Old Testament, from the Torah to the Post-Exilic books."
Mara: The practical upshot is that no single English word carries it. The sermon lists steadfast love, loving kindness, mercy, faithfulness, and loyalty — all of them partial translations of the same Hebrew root.
Pip: Which explains why Psalm 23:6 keeps getting read as a gentle reassurance when it's actually something closer to a covenant guarantee. The sermon unpacks it that way — goodness and mercy become goodness and God's steadfast, faithful, loyal love. That's a different weight.
Mara: And the covenant dimension matters here. Hesed isn't just a quality God has in the abstract — it's specifically tied to relationship. Deuteronomy 7:9 is cited: "the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations."
Pip: So it's not sentiment. It's a binding commitment with a track record. The sermon puts it plainly: God doesn't just say "I am faithful" — he shows it. The proof is John 3:16.
Mara: That's where the sermon turns the question around. God's hesed is costly, freely given, unearned. But the Matthew 10 passage — "whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me" — makes clear that covenant runs both directions.
Pip: The Luke version is even starker. "Hate" your father, mother, wife, children. The sermon reads that as deliberate exaggeration: not literal hatred, but the kind of total priority that makes real love of others possible in the first place.
Mara: And then comes the honest admission — we don't hold up our end. Adam, David, Peter, us. The sermon doesn't soften it. But hesed circles back: "His hesed endures forever," from Psalm 136. Covenant mercy covers covenant failure.
Pip: The bear gets the last word, really. Deserting a friend in danger is unwise — and the sermon asks whether we'd be that kind of friend to Jesus, or the other kind.
Mara: The closing prayer frames it as reliance: strength, wisdom, protection, grace — all asked from the same God whose hesed the sermon just spent a thousand words unpacking.
Pip: A word that takes five English words to translate, and still loses something in the transfer.
Mara: And a covenant that asks the same thing back from us that it promises. That tension doesn't resolve — it just keeps asking the question.
Pip: There's a sermon out there that opens with Henry Ford, pivots through a Ridley Scott film, and lands at a baptismal font — and somehow the logic holds the whole way through.
Mara: That's Fr. John's recent work at Candle in a Cave — a sermon on what baptism actually does to a person, and why the answer is more than symbolic.
Pip: Let's start with the knights of Jerusalem and what they have to do with a sacrament.
What Baptism Actually Does
Mara: The sermon opens with a question that sounds almost dismissive — does water make someone a child of God any more than a sword makes someone a knight?
Pip: And the film Kingdom of Heaven is doing real theological work here. Balian of Ibelin knights common farmers and blacksmiths before a siege, and the bishop asks whether the ceremony changes anything. Balian's answer is one word.
Mara: The sermon quotes it directly: "Does making a man a knight make him a better fighter?" — and Balian looks the bishop square in the eye and says, "Yes."
Pip: That yes carries weight because medieval knighthood wasn't ceremonial decoration. It conferred land, status, religious standing, and — crucially — a new interior sense of self.
Mara: Exactly the point. The sermon draws the parallel plainly: baptism isn't merely about water, just as knighthood isn't merely about a sword. Both are about, in the sermon's own words, "a new allegiance, a new identity, and a new life."
Pip: The Ford story at the opening earns its place here — a machinist returns stolen tools the morning after his baptism. Something actually shifted.
Mara: The sermon lists what that shift includes: forgiveness of sins, participation in Christ's death and resurrection, renunciation of evil, and entry into the community of faith. Then it names the seal — chrismation with oil blessed by the bishop, and the words spoken at the sign of the cross.
Pip: "You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever." That's the line that closes the ceremony, and the sermon treats it as the thing that makes the rest of it stick.
Mara: Nine baptisms on the day this sermon was preached. The closing line echoes Ford: dam up the Cimarron and baptize everyone.
Pip: A bishop, a machinist, and Balian of Ibelin walk into a font — and the sermon makes the case that all three are asking the same question.
Mara: What holds this together is a single claim — that identity conferred by ritual is real identity, not performance.
Pip: Which means the next time someone asks what water does, the answer is still yes.
According to Christian ministry lore, a machinist at the Ford Motor Company found religion and was baptized. Before his conversion, the man had frequently stolen parts and tools from the Ford factory.
Moved by his newfound faith, the employee returned all the stolen goods to his boss the very next morning, explained his baptism, and asked for forgiveness. Dumbfounded by this unprecedented response, the manager sent a telegram to Henry Ford (who was traveling in Europe at the time) asking how to handle the situation. Ford reportedly wired back his enthusiastic approval with the now-famous reply: “Dam up the Detroit River, and baptize the entire city!”
When I get home on Thursday nights—my Friday—my brain is only up for a glass of wine and a movie. Since most new movies disappoint, I’ll usually rewatch an old favorite. A couple of Thursdays ago, I settled in with Kingdom of Heaven, best described as historical fiction about the defense and fall of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187.
This movie centers on Balian of Ibelin. In the movie, his personal life is entirely fictional; however, his role in the defense of Jerusalem is quite accurate, down to a powerful scene as the final battle approaches.
The problem: too few knights remain to defend the city. Most have died or fled. The Patriarch of Jerusalem points this out to Balian. Accepting his words, Balian gives a rousing speech and commands, “Every man-at-arms or capable of bearing them, kneel.” All comply. Approaching a young man, Balian recites his father’s words: “Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless. That is your oath.” To the young man’s surprise, Balian slaps him and says, “And that’s so you remember it.” Balian then steps back, addressing the assembly, and says, “Rise, a knight.”
The bishop, who has witnessed all this, is not impressed and says to Balian, “Does making a man a knight make him a better fighter?” Balian looks the bishop square in the eye and says, “Yes.”
That actually happened, but for us today, we might be inclined to think like the bishop—putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make a pig a beauty queen. However, that’s us today. Back then, being made a knight made you something new.
Being made a knight gave you land and privileges. It offered chances for advancement, political influence, and access to goods and services a commoner would never have. It meant entry into the aristocracy and more. But perhaps more importantly, a shift took place within. You actually became someone. People looked up to you; they called you “Sir.” Your sense of self-worth increased dramatically.
There was also a religious aspect, especially in Jerusalem. There, you became a true defender of the faith. For many, you were a Christian hero. The Pope essentially stated that serving as a knight in Jerusalem counted toward all penances you owed.
When the bishop asked, “Does making a man a knight make him a better fighter?” Balian’s “Yes” carried all this weight, and those who took the knee believed it. No longer were they blacksmiths, farmers, peasants, or even slaves. They were now great defenders of the faith, and for those who truly believed, it would have meant a great deal and, in fact, made them knights and better fighters.
And if you have figured out by now that I’m not talking about the knights of Jerusalem but about those to be baptized into the Christian faith, give yourself a gold star.
Today, we have ____ who will be baptized into Christ’s one holy catholic and apostolic Church. Yet some might ask, “Does water make someone a child of God any more than a sword makes someone a knight?” The answer: Yes! Because neither baptism nor knighthood is merely about water or swords. Both are about a new allegiance, a new identity, and a new life.
Behind that, yes, lie forgiveness of sins, participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, the renunciation of Satan and evil forces of this world, the desire to fight sin and injustice, and true loyalty to Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior. Baptism also opens participation in the community of faith in thought, word, and deed, the call to commend the faith that is in you, and more. Through baptism, you become a citizen of the Kingdom of God and take on all the benefits and duties of a child of God, as has been practiced throughout the Church’s history.
Finally, I won’t be slapping anyone to make them remember it, but we will chrismate all those baptized with the oil blessed and set aside by the bishop. As the sign of the cross is made on the forehead, the words are spoken: “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” This sealing in the Holy Spirit helps us remember all that has been done for us and all that we have vowed to do ourselves.
Given all this sacrament of baptism accomplishes in a person, I say, “Dam up the Cimarron and let’s baptize everyone.” Or, according to the Book of Common Prayer on page 301, “The candidates for Holy Baptism will now be presented.”
Jesus said, “Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
“Every scribe.” We heard this reading just a few Wednesdays ago when we studied Alcuin, who was a librarian of sorts. It also appears when we celebrate the great historian, the Venerable Bede; the theologian, Thomas Aquinas; and a more contemporary writer we studied at length, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We hear this reading and understand that our Saint’s gift involved the Church’s writings. Ephrem of Edessa, whom we celebrate today, is no different.
Early on, he served in the household of Bishop Jacob of Nisbis, and it is likely that he attended the Council of Nicaea (where the Nicene Creed was composed) with the Bishop in 325. Following the Bishop’s death, Ephrem remained in service to Jacob’s successors but was eventually forced to flee following the Persian invasion. He then settled in a cave, where he lived out the remainder of his life.
Although he lived an austere life, he remained active in preaching and writing and was ordained a deacon. Of his writings, he not only wrote the hymn we read but also over 400 others used to teach the orthodox faith, which is how he became known as “The Harp of the Holy Spirit.” He died in 373 from exhaustion while caring for the sick.
There is much for Ephrem to be remembered for, but his role as “scribe” stands out most. For some, his writings are a bit too flowery, but many others find great beauty and comfort in them. In one particular hymn, he addresses the Upper Room where the Last Supper was held: “O blessed spot! No one has seen or shall see the things which you have seen. In you the Lord himself became true altar, priest, and bread and chalice of salvation. He alone suffices for all, yet none suffices for him. He is Altar and Lamb, victim and sacrifice, priest as well as food.”
In the Gospels, Jesus is never pleased with the scribes. He sees them, along with the Sadducees and Pharisees, as placing stumbling blocks before the people, at one point saying, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.” Yet Jesus says that what is needed to be a faithful scribe is one “who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” It is one who understands the writings of those who have gone before and recognizes that those writings speak of and point to the Savior.
Jesus said, “For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.” Ephrem was one who, through his writings, gave us a “cup of water to drink,” and therefore has received his reward. We give thanks for him and all those who have passed on such knowledge, which leads to salvation through Jesus.
Candle in a Cave 