“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest” (9:38). Just as the disciples kneel down to pray, Jesus turns to them and tells them that God has answered their prayer— Jesus tells them, “You’re hired!” They’ve been drafted to join in Jesus’ work, to do the very things he’s been doing—teaching, healing, preaching, casting out demons.

Today’s lesson from Matthew’s Gospel could righty be titled, “Jesus is on the move.” For over the course of a few verses, we see Jesus going from person to person, encounter to encounter, bringing healing and wholeness and reconciliation everywhere he goes.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day when the Church celebrates and contemplates the triune nature of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It used to be that the question of the Trinity was at the center of vital debate in the Church. Nowadays, churches and theologians happily relegate the Trinity to the margins. And yet, it is important that we continue to observe this holy day.

In this obscure story from the book of Numbers, a tattletale comes running up to Moses, complaining that two were doing something they weren't supposed to: they were prophesying, without permission. Moses’ response: Would that all God’s people were prophets! Moses's wish comes true, in a fashion, in our second lesson from the Acts of the Apostles - the day of Pentecost.

What the Ascension of Christ marks is not really God’s absence but rather God’s ubiquity, his omni-presence, his everywhereness. Because Jesus has ascended, left the physical plane of existence, he is now present everywhere on earth. No longer is Christ’s presence limited to the small space taken up by his human body. He is now able to be present throughout all creation, as he sits above it all, ruling over the whole earth, from his throne beside God the Father.

Coming as we are to the tail end of the Easter season, when it’s harder and harder to maintain excitement at the news of Jesus’ resurrection, John in the passage before us today channels Popeil, insisting, “But wait, there’s more,” more to Easter than the promise of our resurrection.

The only way we can say that, though, to claim Jesus is the way, is to follow his way ourselves. This involves learning the way of Jesus, picking up his rhythms and ways of doing things.

In today’s reading from John, Jesus is speaking to his disciples about fences, specifically the kind that you keep sheep in, a “sheepfold.” He says that those who are thieves and bandits try to “hop the fence,” but the shepherd comes in the right way, through the gate, and the sheep know him, know his voice, and they follow him.

Born ‘Michelangelo Merisi’ in 1571, the Italian artist is best known by the name of the township where he grew up, “Caravaggio.” After a lackluster apprenticeship in Milan, Caravaggio ventured to Rome, and by the age of twenty he was causing scandal, not only because of his volatile character and temper, but also because of his controversial painting methods.

The remarkable thing about Easter is that Jesus was not just raised from the dead, or that he defeated the powers of sin and death, but that he also returned to his disciples. It would have been enough that Jesus was resurrected, but he also came back to his fearful followers.

Easter may ultimately be about things that are high, bright, light and clear, but it begins low, dim, dark and murky. That’s what we see in our Gospel lesson this morning from John. Here we are told that, for Mary Magdalen, the day that would eventually become celebrated as Easter began “while it was still dark.”

The writer Annie Dillard, in one of her short stories, has a scene in which a family is sadly gathered at a grave to commit a loved one’s body to the earth. At one point the minister intones the familiar words from I Corinthians, “Where, O Death, is thy sting?” Upon hearing that, one of the family members looks up. He scans the sorrowful faces of his family and sees all around him rows of headstones. And then he thinks to himself, “Why, it’s just about everywhere, seeing a

The healing of the man born blind is significant if only because it had never been done before. No one had ever gained sight when they were born without it. Not in the Old Testament, nor in any stories from ancient times that I can recall. It was a miracle without parallel. It entailed not just fixing a damaged organ but essentially creating new ones, new eyes. But beyond the physical healing, more important is what is signified by the miracle.

As we continue our Lenten journey towards Good Friday, towards the cross, the story of Nicodemus reminds us what this is all about, what the Bible and the church say is the reason God sent Jesus: that no matter how far we feel from God, no matter how long we’ve lived ignoring God’s presence in our lives, no matter what we’ve done or how guilty we feel, or wounded or sullied, Jesus came to save us, to redeem us, to give us new life, eternal life.

What thing in your life is in danger of taking over? What do you love too much in the wrong way? Whatever “it” is, God calls us to end it, to give it up. But that “giving up” need not be some great courageous act of renunciation, rejecting the world and becoming a monk, say. Likely more helpful is to start small, to take baby steps toward new life, beginning by denying ourselves some small things in order to be receptive to greater goods in our lives.

At the Transfiguration, divinity refused to be contained to heaven but erupts into this world, making clear to the disciples and to us, that the transcendent world, the world of God and spirits, is real, just as real as the one we can touch and see and taste, and just as present.

A church that doesn’t invite people or that stops inviting people is not a “true Bible church,” not Jesus’ church. From the first, Jesus promises that if we sign on with him, he will teach us, will teach us not correct doctrine or right behavior or the right opinions, but will teach us to “fish for people,” to catch them, to share in his work of drawing in all people to God.

In 1279, a Dominican monk known as Frère Laurent produced—whether by original composition or careful compilation—the Somme le roi, a handbook of moral instruction prepared for King Philip III of France.

Stanley Spencer (British), The Baptism , 1952 John Baptizes Jesus at the Odney Pool You had not known you belonged to such a region until Spencer took you there, until he showed you Cookham, where God made a detour down High Street, past Fernlea to the Odney Pool, mineral-laced water near the Thames where the artist once swam as a child. All’s inverted now. Heaven’s here-- in the languid pool, where, amid the bathers in their ordinary, black-knit suits, God’s only Son’s

If you are listening for it, you can find Christian messages in the strangest places, even in the lyrics of country music songs. Consider these thoughtful, theological verses: “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers,” “Jesus, take the wheel,” and “God blessed Texas with his own hand.” As I said, deep theology…The lyric that most struck me recently when I heard it is a line from Brooks and Dunn’s ‘Red Dirt Road’: “Happiness on earth ain’t just for high achievers.”