Pip: There's a sermon on Candle in a Cave that opens with Shakespeare, detours through a shrew the size of a penny, and ends with a butcher knife in a teenager's hand — and somehow it's all about forgiveness.
Mara: Fr. John's recent writing takes us into the hard territory of reconciliation — what the Gospel actually asks of us when someone genuinely wrongs us, and why the answer isn't what we'd prefer.
Pip: Let's start with the sermon itself.
What Reconciliation Actually Costs
Pip: The Gospel passage at the center of this sermon sounds, at first read, like permission — Jesus telling us to go confront the person who wronged us. The question the sermon presses on is what motivation we're actually supposed to bring to that confrontation.
Mara: The setup begins with Katherine from The Taming of the Shrew — a character whose fury is her defining feature. The sermon draws a line from her to what it calls the grouch and the shrew in all of us, and then lands here: "It's as if Jesus is giving us permission to be the grouch or the shrew we know we have every right to be."
Pip: Which is a fair read of the text — until it isn't.
Mara: Right, and that's exactly the pivot the sermon makes. The cockroach exercise is where it gets concrete. A dozen teenagers, a paper box with a cockroach image taped to the lid, and a butcher knife. They shred the cockroach completely — and underneath is an image of Jesus, also shredded. The outrage is immediate.
Pip: Probably not the pastoral risk assessment form they teach in seminary, but the lesson lands.
Mara: The sermon draws the theological line directly from that image: "Whatever you do to them, you do to Jesus." And it holds that against the Gospel's one sentence that's easy to skip past.
Mara: That sentence is: "If the member listens to you, you have regained that one." The sermon reads that as the whole point — the motivation isn't vengeance, it's reconciliation. Paul's letter to the Romans backs it up: "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'"
Pip: So the upshot is that the passage isn't a license to build a team and stock up on ammunition — it's a call to want the other person back.
Mara: And the sermon is careful about what reconciliation doesn't require. It doesn't mean forgetting, pretending you weren't hurt, or allowing the offender back into your life. What it does mean, as the sermon puts it, is you release the desire to go stab cockroaches — you refuse to let someone else's sin dictate who you become.
Pip: The closing image is the early martyrs who had no great words, just a simple reply when told to renounce their faith or die.
Mara: "I am a Christian." The sermon offers that as the thing to say to yourself in the moment anger tips toward vengeance — not a denial of the harm, but a refusal to be ruled by it.
Pip: And the final line reframes the familiar "where two or three are gathered" — not a formula for a small meeting, but a description of a reconciled community.
Mara: The through-line here is that reconciliation is the shape of Jesus' entire ministry — and the sermon asks whether we're willing to let that be the shape of ours.
Pip: Even when the cockroach really had it coming. More from Candle in a Cave next time.
Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak, And speak I will. I am no child, no babe. Your betters have endured me say my mind, And if you cannot, best you stop your ears. My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, Or else my heart, concealing it, will break, And, rather than it shall, I will be free Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.
If you know your Shakespeare — thank goodness for the internet, because I don’t — you’ll recognize this as a passage from The Taming of the Shrew (Act 4, Scene 3).
For a long time, my understanding of the word shrew was limited to Webster’s Dictionary’s second definition: an ill-tempered, scolding woman. Please do not report me to the bishop for being sexist. It turns out the first definition refers to a small, insect-eating, mouse-like creature. Some weigh as little as a penny. Not very big.
Somewhere along the way, the name of this tiny, noisy creature became a term for an ill-tempered, scolding person—and Shakespeare gave us perhaps the most famous shrew of all. When a shrew gets agitated, it makes a rapid-fire eek-eek-eek-eek sound, as if it were firing a tiny little machine gun. I suppose Shakespeare thought that’s what Katherine sounded like when she got agitated.
My research tells me there’s no masculine version of the shrew, but I can picture someone like Ove from A Man Called Ove embodying one. Just a real grouch.
So, we have the grouch and the shrew—those who are ill-tempered, and when they get irritated, they sound like tiny little machine guns, letting everyone know exactly how they feel. Thank goodness I am never like that.
Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus offers teachings that are not only difficult to follow but also seem contrary to our natural inclinations. There is the business of loving your neighbor, which we will attempt, but love of your enemy… don’t you think Jesus is asking a bit too much there? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is great until it starts costing us; then we may have to rethink it a bit. And as for the Beatitudes—blessed are the poor, the meek, the peacemakers—they can certainly seem a little too radical at times. However, today’s Gospel reading is something we can all get behind. It’s as if Jesus is giving us permission to be the grouch or the shrew we know we have every right to be.
“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault.” Hallelujah. I can get behind that. And when I do, if I’m honest, I hope that person doesn’t repent, because then I can break out my tiny little machine gun and tell everybody. Even better, in most cases, I have such confidence in how right I am that I can actually dispense with that first step and go straight to telling other people. Then I can build my sides, my team, and stock up on ammunition. I can hit the person who offended me with both barrels and then some. No need for peacemakers here. I have been given permission, by Jesus, to embark on this most holy war.
We like this teaching of Jesus a lot because it gives us room to vent our righteous anger and flip over a few tables. Or does it?
When I served in Montana, I ran an after-school program in one of the communities. The kids who attended were not church kids, and they went to high school across the street. They were great kids, but sometimes a little rough around the edges.
I had them for a couple of hours once a week. We gave them a meal and a safe place. I told them they were always welcome, but their attendance would cost them 10 minutes, and those 10 minutes were mine. They agreed, and I taught them the Christian message in creative ways.
It would never work with our kids here at Saint Matthews, but one message sparked a full-on rebellion from that group.
I took a paper box and, on the lid, I attached a large picture of a cockroach with blue painter’s tape. There were about a dozen kids that day, and I told them there was likely someone in their lives who was an irritant. Perhaps someone they truly disliked or who had hurt them, and that this exercise was designed to help them release the frustration and stress they experienced.
The cockroach, I said, represented this evil person in their life, and they should pour all their disdain for that person into the image of the roach. We had some good laughs as they pictured the person. Then I handed the kid nearest to me a butcher’s knife. “Take out your frustrations,” I said. And they all did. They stabbed that poor cockroach so many times that it was a shredded mess by the end.
When they were suitably vented, I peeled off the blue painter’s tape and removed the picture of the cockroach. What I had failed to tell the kids was that beneath the cockroach image was another image of Jesus. It, too, was a shredded mess, and outrage erupted. “You didn’t tell us.” “That’s not fair.” “I never would have.”
Perhaps putting a sharp butcher knife in the hand of an angry teenager and telling them to work out their frustrations wasn’t the wisest pastoral move, but I would wager they still haven’t forgotten that lesson.
We read our gospel today, and we can become the shrew or the grouch. We can go after someone with our tongue the same way those kids went after that cockroach. We can shred our enemies and firmly believe we are within our Christian rights. Yet when we do, we forget Jesus’ words: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40) From the greatest to the least, from the person you love to the one you hate, whatever you do to them, you do to Jesus.
When we study Scripture, we can study individual passages, but when we interpret it, we must do so through the lens of Scripture as a whole. One part will not negate another. Because that is the case, Jesus is not telling us we have the right to go after the person who offends or hurts us. So what could He possibly be saying in our Gospel?
The answer lies in the motivation. If we read this passage to give ourselves the right to strike out at the cockroach, our motivation is vengeance. Through the lens of Scripture, we know that vengeance is not our department. The Psalmist writes,
Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. (Psalm 37:8)
St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” (Romans 12:19) So if the passage isn’t permission for personal vendettas, what then? What should the motivation be? The answer is found in our Gospel lesson. It’s the one sentence that is easily dismissed: “If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.” The motivation is at the heart of Jesus’ entire ministry: reconciliation. Jesus reconciled us to God so that we might be reconciled to one another.
Yes, there will be people who irritate you, and there will be people who genuinely hurt you. Being reconciled does not mean you have to go and be best friends forever, that you have to forget, or even pretend you weren’t hurt, nor does it mean you have to allow the offender back into your life. However, it does mean, at the very least, you will release the desire to go out and stab cockroaches. It means you won’t allow the other person’s sin to cause you to sin or to dictate who you will become. If the offender chooses not to be reconciled, that is between them and God. However, what is between you and God is your actions, your heart, and your life.
Finally, if you are the offender, which you know you can be, don’t be so pigheaded that you can’t accept fault, for you are under the same obligation, and an even greater one, to work toward reconciliation.
Throughout the history of the Church, there have been great persecutions. Persecutions in which thousands were put to death for their faith—for refusing to renounce Jesus. For every one great capital “S” Saint who somehow found wonderful words to denounce their executioners and profess the faith, there were hundreds of others who were kind, simple people. They didn’t have great knowledge, so no one was going to listen to what little they had to say. Like all the rest, these Christians were given the option in plain language: Renounce your faith or die. In response, they gave a simple reply that spoke volumes: I am a Christian. I am a Christian.
When faced with an evil person or someone who is simply disagreeable to you, your first thought is often anger, which can turn to vengeance—a shrew, a grouch, a knife-wielding cockroach killer. In those moments, don’t surrender yourself to such thoughts. They’ll happen. That doesn’t make you a bad person. Just don’t let them hang around. Say to yourself, “I am a Christian.” That doesn’t mean the evil didn’t happen; it doesn’t mean you have to keep taking it, and it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. However, “I am a Christian” does mean the other will not be allowed to rule your life, and—as hard and painful as the work may be—you will work toward reconciliation.
Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” This is not a formula. This is not simply two or three church folk hanging out together. Instead, it is a reconciled community where Jesus, the one who reconciled us to the Father, is present, healing and restoring our brokenness.
Let us pray: Most Holy Virgin Mary, help us to heal the broken bonds within our families, our friendships, and all our other relationships. Help us to love others the way that Christ loves us with self-sacrificing love. Intercede for us, O Holy Daughter, Spouse, and Mother, so that through the mercy of God, the chains of division will be broken, uniting us once again as you are ever united to the Most Holy Trinity. We ask this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Pip: What if the whole arc of history turns on someone you never heard of — a midwife, a sister watching from the reeds, a princess who ignored her father's orders?
Mara: That's the territory Fr. John is working in this week — small actors, enormous consequences, and what Paul's letter to the Romans has to say about how gifts get distributed across a body. Let's start with the sermon itself.
Sermon: Holy Purposes and the People History Forgets
Pip: The sermon opens with a provocation: history's biggest disasters and turning points may hinge on actions so small the people taking them had no idea what they were doing. The question underneath the whole piece is who actually carries the work forward when the famous figure is still in a basket.
Mara: The sermon sets that up early with the Exodus story, and the framing lands here: "The story of Exodus is not just the story of Moses. Instead, it is the story of God and the individuals He endowed with specific gifts so that His will might be accomplished in their lives and in the world."
Pip: And Moses, in this telling, is almost beside the point for this particular passage. He rides in a basket, eats, sleeps — the sermon is blunt about it. Four things. Everyone else is doing the actual work.
Mara: The sermon traces four figures who each carry a piece of that work. The midwives Shiphrah and Puah are summoned by Pharaoh to kill male Hebrew newborns — professionals, the sermon notes, important members of the community — and they simply refuse, fearing God more than Pharaoh.
Pip: There's a quiet observation buried in there worth pulling out: the sermon notes that the Hebrew word for the basket Jochebed builds is tevah — the same word used for Noah's ark. She's not just hiding a baby. She's building an ark.
Mara: Right, and then Miriam watches where the ark goes, and Pharaoh's daughter — the one person in the story with every advantage — sees a Hebrew child and chooses pity over policy.
Pip: Which is where Paul comes in, and the sermon earns the connection. The Romans passage lists gifts: prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, generosity, leadership, compassion. The sermon points out the list is short but the categories are broad — broad enough to hold midwives, mothers, watchers, and wealthy women with the courage to contradict their fathers.
Mara: The sermon then pivots to Peter's confession, and the move is interesting. Jesus asks Peter who he says Jesus is — and the sermon suggests turning that question around: ask Jesus who he says you are. The answer, it argues, is usually already visible in what you can already do.
Pip: God, the sermon says, is not going to make a brain surgeon into a carpenter. He takes what's already there.
Mara: The closing line pulls it together: "If we allow it, God will take our natural gifts and give us opportunities to use them for holy purposes."
Pip: Small actions. Tremendous results. The reeds are still there if you know where to look.
Mara: The thread running through all of it is that the people history skips over are often the ones holding the story together.
Pip: Ask who you are. Open your eyes. Apparently the answer is already in the water.
Pip: There's a sermon at Candle in a Cave that opens with a man proposing marriage — and his girlfriend immediately asking about someone else. Which, honestly, is a better setup for a theology lesson than most theology lessons get.
Mara: Fr. John uses that story as a way into something the sermon calls "the story of the heart" — what God actually finds when he looks past the surface performance of faith. Let's start there.
Sermon: Proper 15 RCL A — "Story of the Heart"
Pip: The question this sermon is really asking is whether religious observance and genuine faith are the same thing — and the answer, it turns out, is that God is not fooled by the difference.
Mara: The sermon anchors that claim in Psalm 139, with the opening line setting the frame: "O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar."
Pip: So the premise is that the search is already happening, whether you invited it or not. The real question the sermon puts to the listener is whether you actually want God to find what's there.
Mara: And the honest answer the sermon gives is: not always. The words are, "Do I really want God to do that? I mean, I know my heart, and sometimes… it's best left hidden."
Pip: That's a braver thing to say from a pulpit than most people manage.
Mara: The sermon then traces the problem backward through Isaiah, where God tells Israel he is weary of their feasts and offerings — "your hands are full of blood" — while they go through every outward motion correctly. The external performance is intact; the interior is the problem.
Mara: Jesus makes the same move in Matthew 15, quoting Isaiah directly: "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men."
Pip: And then the sermon does something structurally interesting — it treats the very next scene, the Canaanite woman, not as a change of subject but as the proof of the lesson.
Mara: Right. The disciples tell Jesus to send the woman away. What comes out of their mouths, the sermon says, is "prejudice, contempt, judgment, anger, impatience." The woman, by contrast, keeps pressing — "Lord, help me" — and Jesus names what he finds: "Great is your faith."
Pip: The disciples followed every tradition. She broke every boundary just by being there. And she's the one who gets the blessing.
Mara: The sermon closes by returning to Psalm 139 as an invitation and a request together — not just "search me," but "if you find anything amiss, lead me out of it and into your ways." It calls that a good prayer, and also, honestly, a frightening one.
Pip: The sermon's final question — "what is the story of your heart?" — is one of those that doesn't let you off the hook by answering it quickly.
Mara: And it lands harder because the sermon already admitted the honest answer isn't always flattering. More from Candle in a Cave next time.
Johnny was proposing to his girlfriend. He held the ring and said: “Sweetheart, I love you so much. I want you to marry me. I don’t have a car like Hank Green. I don’t have a yacht like his or a house as big as his. I don’t have Hank Green’s money, but I love you with all my heart.” She looked into his eyes and said, “I love you too, sweetheart… but could you tell me more about Hank Green?”
The Psalms are a constant source of inspiration, and as we study them, we learn they serve different purposes. Like today’s psalm, the ones we share on Sundays are often in praise of God, but there are other Psalms for times when we are scared, angry, sick, and so forth. Perhaps the one that speaks to us most about who we are, who God is, and the relationship we share is Psalm 139.
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
The final two verses of the Psalm make a request to God.
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
(Psalm 139:1-3, 23-24)
Reading those words, the question I might ask, especially of myself, is, “Do I really want God to do that?” I mean, I know my heart, and sometimes… it’s best left hidden.
We know that within Judaism there is the Law. It has existed since the days of Moses. For the devout Jew, the Law of Moses governs every aspect of their life. Practicing it properly is good; however, the way the Law was practiced in Jesus’ time was often a major issue. The truth is, the problem goes back much further than that.
We will learn more about this when we begin our study of Isaiah next week, but in the first chapter, Isaiah, on behalf of the Lord, writes,
Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,
learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.
(Isaiah 1:13-17)
On the outside, the Israelites and their leaders appear to be doing everything perfectly. On the inside, God has searched them out and knows their hearts, and what He sees displeases Him. Our gospel reading points to the same issue today.
Just before our reading, the Pharisees and scribes come to Jesus and ask, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” (Matthew 15:2) In response, Jesus calls them “hypocrites.” (Matthew 15:7) Why? He quotes from Isaiah,
“‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
(Matthew 15:8-9)
Now, in our gospel reading, Jesus has just turned from that conversation and faces the people. He says, “Look, it’s not about what goes into the mouth; it’s not crispy fried bacon that makes you a bad person. It’s what comes out of the mouth—it’s what you say, what you believe, your inner dialogue—that’s what makes you bad. Why? Because what comes out of the mouth is from the heart. It is who you truly are. And understand, they did not need to speak these things for God to know them. The Psalm declares, God “knows the secrets of the heart.” (Psalm 44:21b)
“Johnny, sweetheart, I love you so much, but could you tell me a little more about Hank?” You see how that works. What’s in the heart?
The next scene in our Gospel appears to be such an abrupt change in setting and conversation that it is difficult to see how they are related. However, they are intimately connected. The first is the teaching, and the second, with the Canaanite woman, is the application.
The beginning of the second part appears to provide only geographic information, but it is, in fact, the clue to our understanding. (As we said before, the writers of Holy Scripture do not waste words. There is a meaning in them all.) Matthew 15:21 states, “Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.”
Early on, in the understanding of the law of Moses, the Israelites were told not to make a covenant with or marry the Gentiles. Easy enough. However, over time, those laws became even stricter as they were interpreted and reinterpreted. Over generations, those commands were surrounded by traditions intended to preserve Israel’s holiness and identity. The separation could become so profound that Peter would later say to the Gentile Cornelius, “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile.” (Acts 10:28). Tyre and Sidon, where Jesus and the disciples go, are Gentile regions. According to the interpretation of the Law, they have essentially broken the Law; at the very least, they have become unclean.
If that’s not bad enough, a Canaanite woman—a Gentile woman—speaks to him. The disciples know what’s what. They know this woman is a dirty Gentile, so they say, “Send her away, as she is crying out after us.” Jesus appears to confirm everything they are saying by responding, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” She responds, “Lord, help me.” Jesus answers, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She says, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Now hear this. The woman is saying, “Even if what you say is true, what You, Son of David, can give, even if it is a little, only a crumb, will suffice. It will heal.”
Do you remember from a few weeks back when we talked about Jacob wrestling with God until God did what Jacob asked? This woman is doing the same thing. She is wrestling with Jesus. She is wrestling with God, and she will not let Him go until He blesses her and heals her daughter. And as Jacob was blessed, so is she. “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”
Yes. Good, but now go back to the first part of our Gospel lesson. It is not the following of the Law to the letter that matters. It is not what goes into the mouth that makes a person clean or unclean. It’s what comes out of the mouth, out of the heart, and the Lord knows the heart. Right?
With the Canaanite woman, what came out of the disciples’ mouths? Send her away. She is bothering us. She is a Gentile. They surely agreed with Jesus when he implied she was equal to a dog. What came out of the disciples’ mouths? Prejudice. Contempt. Judgment. Anger. Impatience. On the other hand, what came out of this dog’s mouth? What came out of her heart? “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.” “Lord, help me.” “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” What came out of her mouth? Humility. Perseverance. Submission to God. Faith. Not even the disciples had recognized in Jesus what this Canaanite woman did.
Jesus, God, did not see her as something unclean or beneath Him. He saw her as a human being and saw her heart. What came from her heart expressed her inmost being, and Jesus declared, “Great is your faith.”
By the story of their hearts, the disciples had lumped themselves into the same category as the Pharisees and the scribes—hypocrites. By the story of her heart, the woman showed herself to be a child of God and was blessed.
Question: What is the story of your heart?
The Psalmist wrote,
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
That is an invitation for God to look into your heart. What is He going to find? Maybe your heart is nothing like mine, but what He is going to find is not always good. However, the words of the Psalmist are not only an invitation. They are also a request.
“See if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
“I invite you, Lord, to look into my heart, and if you see anything amiss, lead me out of it and into Your ways, the way of everlasting life.”
That is a good and proper prayer, but I will be honest with you: it is also a scary one. In the Letter to the Hebrews, we read, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31) On that day in the region of Tyre and Sidon, it happened to the disciples. They fell into the hands of a loving God, and it changed their lives forever.
Let us pray: O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Our Youth Sunday was today, and Emalyn Terry was our preacher. She just turned 18, and this was her first sermon.
J.M.J
This morning, id like to start off with a riddle. I can’t be bought, but I can be stolen with a glance. I’m worthless to one, but priceless to two. I can fill a room but take up no space. What am I? The answer is love.
What comes to mind when we think about love? Maybe Valentine’s Day came to a couple of you; maybe thoughts of spouses, children, wee little babies, and even beloved dogs and cats came up. It’s a powerful feeling, one that has inspired many poems, books, movies, wars, and those infamous voicemails left at 3 in the morning. However, it is one of the first fruits of our spirits that tends to be guarded quite jealously. It is so easy to be quick to shower those near and dear to us with the greatest affections, but it is so hard to extend it to those who just tick us off. For example, how many of you have responded with love to that person talking a little too loud in the movies, or to that darn driver taking a little bit too long to turn? Loving others as ourselves can be a gargantuan task sometimes, so how do we do it? How do we respond with love when the environment around us is just not conducive?
The answer can be found within the age-old story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. He was a simple shepherd, favored by his father and envied by his brothers for the dreams he had about reigning as king. Eventually, his eleven brothers just had enough of him; they took off his magnificent cloak and threw him in an empty well. He was sold pretty quickly, was taken to Egypt, and was betrayed yet again by the wife of the pharaoh, who threw him in prison. There he had some dreams concerning the pharaoh, explained them to him, and eventually got let out. His brothers then came down to Egypt due to a great famine, and there they reunited with Joseph.
Now, if I were him, I would have slammed the door in their faces so hard that they fell over. However, Joseph had other plans. He welcomes them with open arms. In Genesis verse 5, he says, “Now don’t be worried. Don’t be angry with yourselves for what you did. It was God’s plan for me to come here. I am here to save people’s lives.” He even goes on to give them the very best of what he had, decking them out in the finest clothes and filling them up with the finest food. But how was Joseph able to bring himself to even LOOK at them? I mean, they blew up his life in one single day.
I would like you to notice how Joseph didn’t point out their flaws. He didn’t stand there with a list and rattle off each and every slight that they caused him. He instead looked at the positives of the situation. Instead of being mad at his brothers for hurting him, he instead chose to be glad that his family was there to see him. He saw in them God’s plan for himself, and forgave them with a smile. He led with love first, not even giving a chance for hatred to take hold.
Another example of this radical forgiveness born out of love would be the story of Jesus. People were absolutely TERRIBLE towards him. They mocked, scorned, abused, and even killed Jesus, but He still forgave them. He pleaded on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We were awful towards Him, but He chose to see the good of the world instead of all the bad. He chose to recognize that we could be good, and He believed that we were good, so He went to die on the cross for us. One of the books that I am reading proves exactly that. In this book, the Showings of Julian of Norwich, Jesus appears to an anchoress named Julian on her near-deathbed as she is staring at a crucifix, and gives her multiple visions of Him so that she may contemplate them.
In one of these visions, she writes, “Then Jesus our good Lord said: If you are satisfied, I am satisfied. It is a joy, bliss and endless delight to me that ever I suffered my Passion for you; and if I could suffer more, I should suffer more.” (Repeat, “and if I could suffer more, I should suffer more”). He didn’t say “If the chance comes up again, I might get around to it,” or “Yeah, it would be nice to do that again.” He said, “If I could, I should.” He would willingly suffer all of that again out of sheer LOVE and FORGIVENESS towards us. Despite how horridly we treated Him, despite all we did to Him, he would choose to suffer the immeasurable pain of His passion again for us. That is just how radical His mercy truly is. And that, my friends, is how radically loving we must be with others today.
When we lead with this intense mercy and grace for others, it often comes with affection and joy. It becomes easier and easier to see the good in others first, rather than all of their bad. An increase in love for others can grow and expand our hearts greatly. It is, quite literally, the bright rainbow after the flood. If we truly focus on the good of the environment around us, like Joseph and our Father have done, our hearts are more prone to open up to receive those around us with gladness and kindness.
Now, when we open up our hearts like this, it is in these pockets of true spiritual peace that God’s voice is loudest. A great example of this can be found in today’s reading from the book of Kings. God was not in the great wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in the gentle silence that followed. When we get wrapped up in the tempest of our everyday lives and caught up in our judgment and scorn, it becomes too loud to truly hear Him. As the devotional book The Imitation of Christ states, “Watch over yourself and take care not to judge the actions of other people. We gain nothing by criticizing others, but often are mistaken and thereby offend God. But to judge yourself and your own actions is always profitable.” When we choose to lead with love instead of judgment, we allow ourselves the inner peace to hear God’s voice more clearly than ever before.
So…how do we get started? We have all the pieces to this puzzle, so how do we put it together? A tip comes from one of my favorite saints, St. Therese of Lisieux, also known as The Little Flower of God. In her autobiography, A Story of a Soul, she maintains that we must “bear with all the defects of our neighbor, not being surprised at his failings and being edified by his least virtue. A word, a kindly smile, will often suffice to gladden a wounded and sorrowful heart.” This does not mean that we just turn a blind eye to all the wrongs that someone has done, but rather acknowledge them and focus on what they have done well. We must figure out a way to turn pesky annoyances into great pleasures. For example, when a fellow sister was making a grating noise during morning prayer, St. Therese did not try to ignore it but instead chose to enjoy it, focusing all she could on it and imagining it to be a delightful concert in offering to Jesus. By just choosing to lead with love, she was able to transform that flaw into something beautiful.
Now, I know this is easier said than done, as I am on this journey myself. I used to be a very irritable person. Every little thing just ticked me off, and I would let people know. I was quick with my judgment, and even quicker to sling a little trash talk here and there; I was a hot mess for sure. However, I never felt whole. I always felt like there was a little part that was missing in my life, a part that led to my happiness. I tried finding it in books, movies, video games, but it just wasn’t showing up. My situation was getting worse, in fact, and things were getting pretty dark. This was when I knew I had to change. I knew that if I stayed down the road I was going, I wasn’t going to last.
This was when I stumbled upon A Story of a Soul. In that touching autobiography, she lit up the way for me. I mean, she spoke so delightfully about giving others grace and choosing to see all the good in other people that I just had to give it a go. That’s when I found it. I found that piece that was missing from my heart all that time. The name of that piece was “mercy.” By granting others mercy, by choosing to turn annoyances into pleasures, by choosing to love others radically, I found I was happier than I had ever been before.
It is important to remember, however, that this kind of mercy is a journey. I mean, I still stumble and fall sometimes. It takes a lot to choose kindness these days. However, it takes a lot more strength and courage to fight negativity than it does to wallow in it. After all, in the words of the Little Flower: “Merit does not consist in doing or giving much. It consists in loving much.” When we get back up after we fall into judgment, when we grit our teeth and give a smile to that screaming kid in the restaurant, we are earning ourselves much merit. We are also choosing peace for ourselves and overall happiness. By choosing to compliment the shirt of the guy that’s giving you a hard time, by choosing to focus on the pretty color of the car that just cut you off, you are choosing peace. You are choosing joy. You are choosing God.
I would like to end with a sweet little prayer from Saint Francis of Assisi. Let us pray.
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
Christ in the house of Martha and Mary, by Henryk Siemiradzki, 1886
An archaeologist once hired some tribesmen to lead him to an archaeological site deep in the mountains. After they had been moving for some time, the tribesmen stopped and insisted they would go no further. The archaeologist grew impatient, then angry. But no matter how much he cajoled, the tribesmen would not go any further. Then, all of a sudden, the tribesmen changed their attitude. They picked up the gear and set off once more. When the bewildered archaeologist asked why they had stopped and refused to move for so long, the tribesmen answered, “We had been moving too fast and had to wait for our souls to catch up.”
Thomas Merton, in his book No Man is an Island, wrote, “We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.
“Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life’s leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth.” (No Man is an Island, 134)
I believe this is part of the message of Mary and Martha. We are always Martha. We are always running here and there, making lists of where we need to run here and there next, and planning the list of the next here and there. Yet, in the midst of here and there, we must find the space between the notes, the silence, and rest at the feet of Jesus as Mary did.
Even the great Saints of God must find times of silence to stop and allow their souls to catch up. You and I are no different. We must find a balance – and it is different for each of us – that allows us to carry on with the mission of Christ’s church and our state of life, while at the same time receiving the grace and renewal that come from God.
This time of silence or rest, when assigned to a day, is known as the Sabbath. In his book The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, “In defense of the Sabbath, Philo, the spokesman of the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria, says: this day we are commanded to abstain from all work, not because the law inculcates slackness. … Its object is rather to give man relaxation from continuous and unending toil and by refreshing their bodies with a regularly calculated system of remissions to send them out renewed to their old activities. For a breathing spell enables not merely ordinary people but athletes also to collect their strength with a stronger force behind them to undertake promptly and patiently each of the tasks set before them.” (The Sabbath, 13)
That is the Sabbath as a day, but it can also be understood as a time during the day set aside for the renewal of the soul, which the soul also needs. Again, from Thomas Merton and the analogy of music, “If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest, God does not bless our work. If we twist our lives out of shape in order to fill every corner of them with action and experience, God will silently withdraw from our hearts and leave us empty.”
“Let us, therefore, learn to pass from one imperfect activity to another without worrying too much about what we are missing.” (No Man is an Island, 134)
Regardless of how busy you think you are or how busy you actually are, we must all find balance and make time to be Mary and sit at the feet of Jesus.
Pip: Eleven shells hit a fuel tank. None of them exploded. One contained a handwritten note in Czech. Fr. John is asking what you call that — and the answer is not luck.
Mara: This episode follows a sermon on providence — the claim that God's governance holds even when evil is the instrument. Let's start with that question: luck, fate, or something else entirely.
Sermon: Providence, Luck, and the Shells That Didn't Explode
Mara: The sermon opens with a World War Two bombing run — eleven shells lodged in a fuel tank, none detonating, one carrying a handwritten note from Czech prisoners of war. The frame is a question: what do you call a result like that?
Pip: The note inside that shell is the hinge of the whole argument. The translation, when Intelligence finally found someone to read it, was this: "This is all we can do for you now."
Mara: And the point is that neither luck nor fate can hold that story. Luck is pure chance — spin the wheel. Fate is predetermined and immovable. Either way, there is no room for free will and no need for God.
Pip: Providence is the alternative — defined in the sermon as "God's wise, loving, and continual governance of all creation, by which He sustains the universe and directs history toward His good purposes while respecting our free will." That is a precise claim, not a vague comfort.
Mara: The precision matters because the sermon extends it to evil, not just good outcomes. The Czech prisoners were in a Nazi labor camp. That was not a good thing. But the sermon argues God used that evil to preserve the crew — and that this pattern runs through all of history, including the crucifixion.
Pip: Peter's line from Acts 2:23 lands hard here: Christ was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" — and still killed by lawless hands. Providence and human evil, occupying the same sentence.
Mara: The sermon draws the practical consequence plainly: if God redeemed the greatest evil ever committed, then no evil in your life is beyond his power to redeem. The question becomes how you respond when evil arrives — and the sermon offers exactly two options.
Pip: Option one gets its own parable — the Devil's Supply Store, where discouragement and doubt are kept off the shelves because they are too valuable to sell. Hopelessness, the sermon says, is the weapon that causes a soul to do nothing, which is far more deadly than anger or lust.
Mara: Option two is Paul's confidence in Romans 8: that nothing — "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come" — can separate us from the love of God. Providence is the ground that makes that confidence possible, not naive optimism.
Pip: Saint Padre Pio gets the closing word before the prayer: "God is our Father, so what have you to fear while you are the child of such a Father, through whose providence not even a single hair will fall from your head?" Lean on that and see what it holds.
Mara: The thread running through all of this is that the frame you bring to events — luck, fate, or providence — changes what you do when things go wrong.
Pip: Right. And the note in the shell is still there whether you read it that way or not. More to come from Candle in a Cave.
Elmer Bendiner, in his book, The Fall of Fortresses, describes a bombing run over the German city of Kassel: Our B-17 was barraged by flak from Nazi anti-aircraft guns. That was not unusual, but on this particular occasion our gas tanks were hit. Later, as I reflected on the miracle of a twenty-millimeter shell piercing the fuel tank without touching off an explosion, our pilot, Bohn Fawkes, told me it was not quite that simple.
On the morning following the raid, Bohn had gone down to ask our crew chief for that shell as a souvenir of unbelievable luck. The crew chief told Bohn that not just one shell but eleven had been found in the gas tanks—eleven unexploded shells where only one was sufficient to blast us out of the sky. It was as if the sea had been parted for us. Even after thirty-five years, so awesome an event leaves me shaken, especially after I heard the rest of the story from Bohn.
He was told that the shells had been sent to the armorers to be defused. The armorers told him that Intelligence had picked them up. They could not say why at the time, but Bohn eventually sought out the answer.
Apparently, when the armorers opened each of those shells, they found no explosive charge. They were clean as a whistle and just as harmless. Empty? Not all of them.
One contained a carefully rolled piece of paper. On it was a scrawl in Czech. The Intelligence people scoured our base for a man who could read Czech. Eventually, they found one to decipher the note. It set us marveling. Translated, the note read: “This is all we can do for you now.”
An almost unbelievable story. So how would you categorize the result? Was the B-17 crew lucky? Was it fate? Or was it something more?
Luck refers to events or outcomes that happen by chance rather than through our own planning or effort. Chance is the key element. Spin the wheel and see what happens. Fate, on the other hand, can be defined as a predetermined course of events, unwavering and unalterable. No matter what anyone says or does, good or bad, will have any effect on the outcome. Yet when it comes to luck and fate, where is God? Luck says chance and fate says predetermined. With either, there is no room for free will and there is no need for God.
Yet we know that there is a God who Rules over all things. Saint Paul teaches us in the letter to the Colossians, in Jesus “all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:16-17) Therefore, we do not believe that things come about by luck or chance, nor do we believe that the ways of the world have been set on the path of fate from which nothing deviates. Instead, we believe in God’s providence, defined as God’s wise, loving, and continual governance of all creation, by which He sustains the universe and directs history toward His good purposes while respecting our free will. It is God’s providence that allowed Saint Paul to write in his letter to the Romans, which we read today: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
I think that sometimes, when we read those verses, we believe they refer only to good occurrences, but that is not the case. They also include evil, for God uses both to serve his purposes.
Consider the fellows whose plane was shot up with those non-explosive shells. Miraculous. Incredible. They went on to live another day, and that is good. However, consider those Czech POWs in a Nazi work camp. Was that a good thing? Do you think they were thrilled with the idea? No. It was evil, yet God used that evil to bring about good and to serve his purposes.
The greatest example we have of God using evil to bring about good is Jesus. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter said to the Israelites, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” (Acts 2:23) And the why, behind the good that came from this evil, Peter explains in his first epistle, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” (1 Peter 3:18b) If God could take the greatest evil ever committed—the crucifixion of His own Son—and use it for the salvation of the world, then there is no evil in your life that is beyond His power to redeem.
All of this points to the fact that much is going on in the world around us that we do not see or even catch a hint of. We see only our small world, but in all of it, nothing good or evil will disrupt God’s providence—His loving care of his children.
This teaches us something about our lives, although it is not an easy lesson or one that is easily practiced—both the good and the evil of our lives are used by God. God did not create the evil—hear that—God is not responsible for the evil in our lives, but He takes it and uses it for His purposes to accomplish His will and our salvation.
And the fact is, both good and evil will come. It is inevitable. So, how do we respond? When it is good, we dance. The more important question is how we respond to God’s providence when the evil comes knocking, because it most certainly will.
There are variations and nuances to the answers, but there seem to be only two options. Option one can be explained with a story. It goes by several different names, so I’ll call it The Devil’s Supply Store.
The legend explains that the devil used to sell his items and artifacts to potential buyers and demons. He would sell them items such as the scent of lust, a collar of greed, and blades that inflicted wounds of anger, along with other weapons that shot pride deep into the hearts of unsuspecting souls. With these weapons and more, demons were able to spread darkness across the world even more effectively.
One day, a potential buyer, another demon, arrived. As he perused the devil’s wares, he saw in the back corner something that caught his eye. On a plain pedestal sat two unmarked items, an old wooden mallet and a very boring-looking wooden spike. He inquired about them, and the devil quickly said they were not for sale. The Demon, even more curious, asked why. “Explain,” he said. The devil said, “They are discouragement and doubt. Together, they become hopelessness. They are my most powerful weapons. When none of my other items work, I employ these two, and they get the job done every time.” “How so?” said the demon, who would know very much more.
The devil sighed, leaned in, and said, “Nothing paralyzes the soul more than discouragement and doubt. While my other items may cause the soul to act out, such as anger or lust, hopelessness, discouragement, and doubt cause a soul to do nothing, which is much more deadly. They are no respecter of persons. They drain their victims of courage and faith, blurring and blocking out their visions and dreams with anxiety and fear. When the soul succumbs to hopelessness, it becomes an empty shell, a sack with only enough energy to feel sorry for itself.”
Option one, when evil comes knocking, is to fall into despair and hopelessness. You can lose your faith and curse God, or—option two—you can understand that when Paul says, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God,” he really does mean all things. Whether good or evil, all things are under God’s providence. This understanding gives Paul the confidence to go on and say, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Saint Padre Pio wrote, “God is our Father, so what have you to fear while you are the child of such a Father, through whose providence not even a single hair will fall from your head?”
Your life is not a matter of luck or fate. It is a fulfillment of God’s providence—God working out His will for your life and the lives of others, and for your salvation. That is what it is really all about. God sees all the good and all the evil and, in His love, uses it so that you might be with Him eternally.
“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.” (1 Corinthians 16:13 NIV) Stand secure in God’s providence.
Let us pray: Eternal God! Whose eyes are over all Thy works, especially intent on Thy servants: vouchsafe to turn away from us whatever is hurtful, and grant us whatever is advantageous, that through Thy favor, and under the benign influence of Thy special Providence, we may securely pass through the dangers and difficulties of this life, and happily arrive at the eternal joys of the next. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Candle in a Cave 