Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the Feast of St. Luke, evangelist, writer of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, and devoted missionary companion of Paul.
Luke’s Gospel is unique in several ways.
Six miracles appear only in Luke:
the miraculous catch of fish
the raising of the widow’s only son
healing a possessed, crippled woman
healing a man with dropsy
cleansing of ten lepers
healing the man’s ear in Gethsemane
Eighteen parables are unique to Luke, including the beloved stories of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.
Van Gogh’s Good Samaritan
While both Matthew and Luke contain the story of Christ’s birth, only Luke includes those beautiful passages which now comprise the joyful mysteries of the rosary: Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Presentation, and Finding in the Temple.
Only Luke gives us the Magnificat and the cherished words of the Hail Mary.
Think of all that we would not be able to visualize without Luke’s blessed writings. No Gabriel. No Elizabeth, Zachary, Anna or Simeon. No tender Samaritan or merciful loving Prodigal Father to show us God’s face.
Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son
Maybe some of your favorite passages are among these Lucan treasures. You might want to choose one to accompany you throughout your day.
Poetry: A Sonnet for St. Luke – Malcolm Guite
His gospel is itself a living creature A ground and glory round the throne of God, Where earth and heaven breathe through human nature And One upon the throne sees it is good. Luke is the living pillar of our healing, A lowly ox, the servant of the four, We turn his page to find his face revealing The wonder, and the welcome of the poor. He breathes good news to all who bear a burden Good news to all who turn and try again, The meek rejoice and prodigals find pardon, A lost thief reaches paradise through pain, The voiceless find their voice in every word And, with Our Lady, magnify Our Lord.
The music today is a country song, not really about St. Luke’s Gospel, but certainly reflecting its love and respect for those who are poor.
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time September 4, 2022
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we continue to move into the final segments of Luke’s Gospel which we have been reading on Sundays throughout this liturgical year.
Today, the Church links three readings which, at first glance, might seem unrelated.
Our first reading from Wisdom reminds us of God’s infinite wisdom, incomprehensible to our human minds.
Paul, in his letter to Philemon, begs for the loving inclusion of Onesimus, an enslaved person, into the Colossian community.
In our Gospel, Jesus makes this harsh pronouncement:
If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
How might we interpret these disparate passages to find a message of wholeness for our prayer?
Let’s start with Jesus. In no uncertain terms, he challenges his disciples to move out of their small worlds into God’s big world. That Godly world is not defined by family, nor by any condition other than our common Creaturehood in God … not by:
Jesus says the sacred community is defined only by shared and irrevocable commitment to the Gospel of love and mercy.
Paul knows and loves Onesimus, the slave, as a brother in this community. In his letter, Paul encourages Philemon to do the same.
Sometimes as human beings, filled with all kinds of insecurities, we tend to build enclaves that make us feel safe. We like to be with “our kind”. We invent borders to filter out those whose differences we don’t understand. We allow fear to grow with that lack of understanding. Within the enclosure of our self-protectionism, we eventually forget that we are all one, equal, precious, beautiful and beloved by God.
Such toxic attitudes are the soil for slavery, war, ethnic cleansing, racial supremacy, human trafficking, destructive nationalism, and all the other sacrileges committed by humans against the human family.
Wisdom reminds us that only God can open the tight circle of our fears, judgments and isolations – only God whose infinite love encompasses all. Jesus tells us that we find that love only by lifting up the cross and following him.
Wisdom tells us to put it in God’s hands, and to respond to God’s challenge in the preaching of Jesus Christ.
Who can know your way of thinking, O God … except you give us wisdom and send your Holy Spirit from on high thus stretching the hearts of those on earth
Today I pray, may God do this for me, and for all our tight, convoluted and troubled world.
Poetic Prayer of Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard of Bingen (c. 1098 – 17 September 1179), was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. She has been considered by scholars to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.
I am Wisdom.
Mine is the blast of the resounding Word
through which all creation came to be,
and I quickened all things with my breath
so that not one of them is mortal in its kind;
for I am Life.
Indeed I am Life, whole and undivided
-- not hewn from any stone,
or budded from branches,
or rooted in virile strength;
but all that lives has its root in Me.
For Wisdom is the root
whose blossom is the resounding Word....
I flame above the beauty of the fields
to signify the earth
-- the matter from which humanity was made.
I shine in the waters to indicate the soul,
for, as water suffuses the whole earth,
the soul pervades the whole body.
I burn in the sun and the moon to denote Wisdom,
and the stars are the innumerable words of Wisdom.
Music: Who Has Known (an Advent hymn, but perfect I think for today’s readings)
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Isaiah and Luke who both offer us passages in which God self-describes in displays of omnipotence and tenderness.
In Isaiah, we meet the powerful Creator Who dispenses both justice and mercy.
In Luke, we meet the merciful Savior Who tenderly uses that power to heal.
With our psalm response from Isaiah, we voice our longing to be healed by God’s infinite power – a power which finds the world’s brokenness, seeps into it like rain, transforms it with love.
Poetry: I Rain by Hafiz
The poem came to mind when I prayed the verse: Let the clouds rain down the Just One, and the earth bring forth a Savior.
I rain Because your meadows call For God.
I weave light into words so that When your mind holds them
Your eyes will relinquish their sadness, Turn bright, a little brighter, giving to us The way a candle does To the dark.
I have wrapped my laughter like a gift And left it beside your bed.
I have planted my heart’s wisdom Next to every signpost in the sky.
A wealthy one, seeing all this, May become eccentric,
A divinely wild soul transformed to infinite generosity
Tying gold sacks of gratuity To the dangling feet of moons, planets, ecstatic Midair dances, and singing birds.
I speak Because every cell in your body Is thirsty For God.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Advent readings increase in joyously expectant tone. They offer us wonderful images for our hope!
1. Our First Reading – A Blossoming Desert
Isaiah’s exultant description of the Peaceful Kingdom
2. Our Psalm – An Expectant Heart
the Psamist’s confidence in God’s intervention
3. Our Gospel – A Merciful, Rule-Breaking Savior!
Jesus’s miracle, and probable delight, for the paralyzed man lowered through the roof! (Here is Mark’s version of the same incident as in Luke today.)
We have seen incredible things.. Luke 5:26
These passages are filled with an exuberant expectation, much like children feel as they discover an amazing gift. I remember with delight how my toddler nieces, nephew, and grands responded to their first snow! It’s a wonder that makes us want to be young again and eager for what may seem otherwise incredible.
May we open our hearts with innocent hope toward God’s promise that we are loved beyond our wildest dreams – by a God Who will redeem us!
If you can, take the time today to read these passages slowly, listening for the particular word that will fall upon your heart like a blossom of hope in the desert – (or icy white magic from the sky!)
Poetry: Snow by Gillian Clarke
The dreamed Christmas, flakes shaken out of silences so far and starry we can’t sleep for listening for papery rustles out there in the night and wake to find our ceiling glimmering, the day a psaltery of light.
So we’re out over the snow fields before it’s all seen off with a salt-lick of Atlantic air, then home at dusk, snow-blind from following chains of fox and crow and hare, to a fire, a roasting bird, a ringing phone, and voices wondering where we are.
A day foretold by images of glassy pond, peasant and snowy roof over the holy child iconed in gold. Or women shawled against the goosedown air pleading with soldiers at a shifting frontier in the snows of television,
while in the secret dark a fresh snow falls filling our tracks with stars.
Music: Winter Snow Song – Audrey Assad
[Verse 1] Could’ve come like a mighty storm With all the strength of a hurricane You could’ve come like a forest fire With the power of Heaven in Your flame
[Chorus] (But) You came like a winter snow Quiet and soft and slow Falling from the sky in the night To the earth below
[Verse 2] Oh You could’ve swept in like a tidal wave Or an ocean to ravish our hearts You could have come through like a roaring flood To wipe away the things that we’ve scarred
[Chorus] (But) You came like a winter snow Quiet and soft and slow Falling from the sky in the night To the earth below
[Bridge] Ooh no, Your voice wasn’t in a bush burning No, Your voice wasn’t in a rushing wind It was still, it was small, it was hidden
[Chorus] (But) You came like a winter snow Quiet and soft and slow Falling from the sky in the night To the earth below
[Outro] Falling, oh yeah, to the earth below You came falling from the sky in the night To the earth below
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 24 in which the psalmist expresses the heart’s deep longing for God:
Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD? or who may stand in that holy place? The one whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean, who desires not what is vain. Who shall receive a blessing from the LORD, a reward from God the savior. Such is the race that seeks for God, that seeks the face of the God of Jacob.
Psalm 24: 5-6
But achieving those sinless hands and clean heart is not always an easy task. It takes a life focused on faith and rooted in love.
Jesus talks about that focus in today’s Gospel.
Jesus gives us a parable which, at first, appears to say, “Get your act together fast, or God might zap you.” From Jesus’s words, we can assume that some public disasters have recently occurred. Those in the gathered crowd are unnerved by these events.
Jesus uses that nervousness to talk about repentance. He tells the people that tragedy can make us wake up to the fact that life is fragile and fleeting. That awareness should make us want to use our time on earth well, to give glory to God.
The repentance Jesus encourages is not just a contrition, or turning from sin. It is an opening of the soul’s eyes to see our lives and circumstances as God sees them.
Is God going to zap us if we don’t have that kind of repentance? No, I think not.
God is always Mercy … always, always Mercy.
With the parable of the fruitless fig tree, Jesus assures us that God is with us, giving us every grace and opportunity to bear spiritual fruit. God is patient and nurturing. But, in every human life, there is a limit to the time we have to respond.
Poetry: The Facts of Life – Pádraig Ó Tuama
That you were born and you will die.
That you will sometimes love enough and sometimes not.
That you will lie if only to yourself.
That you will get tired.
That you will learn most from the situations you did not choose.
That there will be some things that move you more than you can say.
That you will live that you must be loved.
That you will avoid questions most urgently in need of your attention.
That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg of two people who once were strangers and may well still be.
That life isn’t fair. That life is sometimes good and sometimes better than good.
That life is often not so good.
That life is real and if you can survive it, well, survive it well with love and art and meaning given where meaning’s scarce.
That you will learn to live with regret. That you will learn to live with respect.
That the structures that constrict you may not be permanently constricting.
That you will probably be okay.
That you must accept change before you die but you will die anyway.
So you might as well live and you might as well love. You might as well love. You might as well love.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 119, the longest and very familiar psalm which pleads for God to mercifully teach us:
Wisdom
Knowledge
Goodness
Generosity
Kindness
Compassion
In our readings, Paul asserts that without God’s Grace we can never attain these gifts. Jesus calls us to use these gifts and to practice a holy life by recognizing and responding justly to the challenges of our times.
Paul sounds a lot like someone approaching the microphone at “Sinners Anonymous”:
I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.
Romans 7:18-20
Paul basically attests to the fact that for human beings, even him, will and actions often don’t synch up. Sure, we want to be good people, but as Nike says, do we …
Paul’s says no. The only way we do the good we will to do is by the grace of Jesus Christ.
In our Gospel, Jesus affirms the slowness of the human spirit to act on the realities around us. In some translations, Jesus uses a phrase which caught on with the architects of Vatican II: the signs of the times.
Jesus tells his listeners and us that we need to be alert to the circumstances of our world. It both weeps and rejoices. Where it weeps, we must be a source of mercy and healing. Where it rejoices, we must foster and celebrate the Presence of the Spirit.
In the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World), we read:
In every age, the church carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel, if it is to carry out its task. In language intelligible to every generation, it should be able to answer the ever recurring questions which people ask about the meaning of this present life and of the life to come, and how one is related to the other. We must be aware of and understand the aspirations, the yearnings, and the often dramatic features of the world in which we live.
Although written in the 1960s, these powerful words hold true today. We are the Church of which the document speaks. We are the ones whom Jesus calls to respond with authentic justice and mercy to the signs of the times.
Read the newspaper in that light today. Watch the news in that light. Meet your brothers and sisters in that light today.
Poetry: Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Perhaps more than anything else, Shelley wanted his message of reform and revolution spread, and the wind becomes the symbol for spreading the word of change through the poet-prophet figure. Some also believe that the poem was written in response to the loss of his son William in 1819 (born to Mary Shelley – author of “Frankenstein”). The ensuing pain influenced Shelley. The poem allegorizes the role of the poet as the voice of change and revolution. (Wikipedia)
I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!
II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion, Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine aëry surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith’s height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!
III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave’s intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!
IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seem’d a vision; I would ne’er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Music: The Times They Are A’changin’ – Bob Dylan
Dylan’s songs in the 50s and 60s became anthems for the Civil Rights and anti-war movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated a wide range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defied popular music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture. (Wikipedia)
Ah, it was a good time to be young! (me)
The Swedish Academy awarded Dylan the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 40 in which the psalmist prays for all who seek God and faithfully wait on God’s salvation:
May all who seek you exult and be glad in you, And may those who love your salvation say ever, “The LORD be glorified.”
Psalm 40:17
Luke’s Gospel describes the expectant fidelity God gives us and desires from us. In other words, God waits for us too!
The master of the house was away on a long journey. Likely he would have tried to return home in daylight, because the ancient roads were dark and menacing at night. Perhaps the evening meal was already prepared in anticipation of his arrival. But he does not appear over the distant rise where all the household’s eyes are trained.
You know how they waited. You’ve waited for loved ones coming home in bad weather. You’ve waited for beloved holiday guests when flights are delayed or traffic is snarled.
You watch for headlights cresting down the far road. You listen for the sound of a car door closing. Minutes seem like hours. The perfectly prepared meal cools, and your energy slackens as you pick at the olives and breadsticks.
Sometimes our prayer life feels like that. We do all the things necessary to welcome God’s grace, but instead we feel distant from the Divine Presence. We long for God’s warm blessing over the feast of our life, but God tarries somewhere at the other edge of our hope. We feel like these Gospel servants who wait, exhausted, even into the early morning hours.
But we don’t give up. Our hope remains steadfast because God has promised. And it is in that fidelity that our eyes are opened to realize that God had been present all along — just not looking as we had expected.
It turns out that God is the One who had been waiting… waiting for us to see.
Poetry: Waiting by Leza Lowitz
You keep waiting for something to happen,
the thing that lifts you out of yourself,
catapults you into doing all the things you've put off
the great things you're meant to do in your life,
but somehow never quite get to.
You keep waiting for the planets to shift
the new moon to bring news,
the universe to align, something to give.
Meanwhile, the pile of papers, the laundry, the dishes, the job –
it all stacks up while you keep hoping
for some miracle to blast down upon you,
scattering the piles to the winds.
Sometimes you lie in bed, terrified of your life.
Sometimes you laugh at the privilege of waking.
But all the while, life goes on in its messy way.
And then you turn forty. Or fifty. Or sixty...
and some part of you realizes you are not alone
and you find signs of this in the animal kingdom
when a snake sheds its skin its eyes glaze over,
it slinks under a rock, not wanting to be touched,
and when caterpillar turns to butterfly
if the pupa is brushed, it will die –
and when the bird taps its beak hungrily against the egg
it's because the thing is too small, too small,
and it needs to break out.
And midlife walks you into that wisdom
that this is what transformation looks like –
the mess of it, the tapping at the walls of your life,
the yearning and writhing and pushing,
until one day, one day
you emerge from the wreck
embracing both the immense dawn
and the dusk of the body,
glistening, beautiful
just as you are.
Music: A country tune today, maybe overly simple. But I find some country music has a profound nugget of truth buried in the twang. I hope you can enjoy it.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the Feast of St. Luke, evangelist, writer of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, and devoted missionary companion of Paul.
Luke’s Gospel is unique in several ways.
Six miracles appear only in Luke:
the miraculous catch of fish
the raising of the widow’s only son
healing a possessed, crippled woman
healing a man with dropsy
cleansing of ten lepers
healing the man’s ear in Gethsemane
Good Samaritan – Vincent Van Gogh
Eighteen parables are unique to Luke, including the beloved stories of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.
Prodigal Son – Rembrandt
While both Matthew and Luke contain the story of Christ’s birth, only Luke includes those beautiful passages which now comprise the joyful mysteries of the rosary: Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Presentation, and Finding in the Temple.
Only Luke gives us the Magnificat and the cherished words of the Hail Mary.
The Visitation – Domenico Ghirlandaio
Think of all that we would not be able to visualize without Luke’s blessed writings. No Gabriel. No Elizabeth, Zachary, Anna or Simeon. No tender Samaritan or merciful loving Prodigal Father to show us God’s face.
Maybe some of your favorite passages are among these Lucan treasures. You might want to choose one to accompany you throughout your day.
Poetry: Luke by Malcolm Guite
His gospel is itself a living creature
A ground and glory round the throne of God,
Where earth and heaven breathe through human nature
And One upon the throne sees it is good.
Luke is the living pillar of our healing,
A lowly ox, the servant of the four,
We turn his page to find his face revealing
The wonder, and the welcome of the poor.
He breathes good news to all who bear a burden
Good news to all who turn and try again,
The meek rejoice and prodigals find pardon,
A lost thief reaches paradise through pain,
The voiceless find their voice in every word
And, with Our Lady, magnify Our Lord.
Music: The Gospel According to Luke ~ Skip Ewing – a different but interesting take on Luke’s Gospel. The music today is a country song, not really about St. Luke’s Gospel, but certainly reflecting its love and respect for those who are poor.
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the feast of St. Luke who gave us so many inspiring stories and insights not in the other three Gospels. Here are just a few:
the Visitation
the Magnificat
Zechariah’s Canticle
the Christmas angels
Simeon and Anna
the Miraculous Fish Catch
the Anointing of Jesus’s Feet
Mary and Martha
Zaccheus in the Tree
the Emmaus story
and many other stories and teachings
When we examine these unique stories, we can see many reflections of Mary’s viewpoint on various incidents. Indeed, Luke, from the outset, sets Mary as first of disciples and a model for all who desire to follow Christ.
Today’s Gospel is one of those passages unique to Luke. It must have been a cherished memory of the disciples as they continued Jesus’s preaching after his Ascension. As they met challenges in their lives and ministries, these words could keep them focused.
The Lord Jesus appointed seventy-two disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. Go on your way…
Perhaps this, or another favorite passage from Luke, has encouragement to offer us today. Do you havefavorite?
Music: my favorite – the Magnificat, the ultimate prayer of social justice sung here by the Daughters of Mary (Latin and English below)
Magníficat ánima mea Dóminum.
Et exultávit spíritus meus: in Deo salutári meo.
Quia respéxit humilitátem ancíllae suae:
Ecce enim ex hoc beátam me dicent omnes generatiónes.
Quia fécit mihi mágna qui pótens est: et sánctum nómen eius.
Et misericórdia eius in progénies et progénies timéntibus eum.
Fécit poténtiam in bráchio suo: dispérsit supérbos mente cordis sui.
Depósuit poténtes de sede: et exaltávit húmiles.
Esuriéntes implévit bonis: et dívites dimísit inánes.
Today, in Mercy, we begin about a month of readings from Paul’s letter to the Romans. We will also continue with Luke’s Gospel all the way up to Advent.
To help me in praying with Romans, I am using a book by Scott W. Hahn, Father Michael Scanlan Chair of Biblical Theology at Steubenville University. In his introduction, Hahn says this:
Today’s reading offered me these elements to ponder and pray with:
Paul calls himself a “slave” of Jesus Christ
He invokes his call as an Apostle
He sets himself in the company of the prophets
He appeals to Jews who revere David
but proclaims Christ, through his Resurrection, as Messiah beyond human lineage
He proclaims his mission to the Gentiles
to bring about “the obedience of faith”
I’ll be honest with you. I’ve read or heard this passage maybe fifty times in my lifetime, and it has meant little or nothing to me. At best, it has sounded like a formal introduction such as those we hear from government “whereas” type decrees.
But I took Dr. Hahn’s advice, studying the passage, and reading it slowly and prayerfully. Here’s what I received:
Paul’s Apostolic call, to which he willingly enslaved his heart, was to preach the Good News of our redemption in Jesus Christ – to preach it to Jews, Romans, Gentiles, and all people.
It is an awesomely incredible message that can be received only through the gift of faith.
It is a message rooted in the scripture stories we love, and where we look to find a reflection of our own stories.
Learning from these realities will help us come to a faith which expresses itself in action and gives glory to God in our own time.
Luke gives us one such story today. Jesus reminds the crowd of two familiar passages – that of Jonah and the “Queen of the South” (the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings 10). He indicates that the people in these stories believed without a sign.
Jesus tells the people gathered around him to learn from this. The crowd demands a sign, but Jesus says the sign is right in front of you – it is only your open heart that is lacking.
In his introduction, Paul prays for such open hearts in the Romans:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
By that same grace, may we receive faith’s blessing as well.
Lavish Mercy 