September 23
He sends them out with nothing, no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no second tunic, and the emptiness of their hands becomes the very shape of their trust.
There is something freeing in travelling that light, dependent entirely on the welcome of others and the power given rather than possessed.
September 24
Herod hears of all that is happening and is perplexed, unsettled by rumours of a prophet raised, of Elijah returned. He wants to see Jesus, and that wanting is left curiously unresolved.
Curiosity about Jesus is not yet faith in him; the two can sit in the same heart for a long time without one becoming the other.
September 25
Who do the crowds say that I am, Jesus asks, and then, more searchingly, who do you say that I am. Peter’s answer is right, and immediately followed by the hard word about suffering, rejection, and rising.
Confession of faith and the shadow of the cross arrive together in this passage; they were never meant to be separated.
September 26
Let these words sink into your ears, Jesus says of his coming betrayal, and the disciples do not understand, and are afraid to ask. Their silence is its own kind of honesty.
There are truths we are not yet ready to hear, however plainly they are spoken, and perhaps the wisdom is knowing that incomprehension, too, can be a stage on the way to understanding.
September 27
Two sons are asked to work in the vineyard; one refuses and later goes, the other agrees and never does. Jesus asks which one did the father’s will, and the answer embarrasses the religious authorities who are listening.
Tax collectors and prostitutes, he says, are entering the kingdom ahead of them. It is the doing, eventually, honestly arrived at, that counts for more than the fluent first response.
September 28
An argument breaks out among the disciples about who is the greatest, and Jesus answers by placing a child beside him. Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, he says.
Greatness, redefined this way, has nothing to do with rank and everything to do with the willingness to welcome someone with no status to offer in return.
September 29
Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit, Jesus says of Nathanael, before Nathanael has said anything at all. I saw you under the fig tree, he adds, and something shifts in that small, private recognition.
To be truly seen, known before we have explained ourselves, is perhaps one of the deepest experiences faith can offer.
September 30
Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Discipleship, it turns out, asks for a kind of homelessness we are not eager to embrace.
Let the dead bury their own dead, he says, and no one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom. The call, whenever it comes, asks for the whole of the present moment, not a divided glance toward what is being left behind.