Author: Scott McAndless

https://youtu.be/onGp5Viuio0

Hespeler, September 6, 2026 © Scott McAndless – Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Ezekiel 33:7-11, Psalm 119:33-40, Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:15-20

Some people might be troubled with the passage that we read from the Gospel of Matthew this morning. It begins with one little word that strikes fear into the heart of church leaders everywhere. It starts with the word if: “If your brother or sister sins against you.”

Why does that one little word scare us so? Because it means that something could happen. And what might happen is an argument, a fight or a conflict. It is saying that, in the church, people could do things to harm, frighten, insult or disrespect one another.

We Are Family

I mean, that shouldn’t be possible, right? In the church, we are supposed to be a family. The words “brother or sister” are right there in the verse. And families are supposed to always love one another, not fight with one another.

Yeah, even as I say that, I realize how naïve that sounds. Families can actually be the very worst when it comes to arguing, fighting and disagreeing. They are particularly good at it because they know each other so well. They know exactly how to get under each other’s skins, the words and responses that hurt most.

Families fight precisely because they care about each other. You might not bother to respond at all if some stranger does something foolish because you don’t really care about them. But when it is someone in your family, you might not be able to stop yourself from fighting with them about their foolishness.

Yet even though we love to use that family language in the life of the church, we seem to expect that conflicts and disagreements should not arise in the life of the church. Leaders like me often seek to avoid it and prevent it as much as possible.

Conflict Is Part of Life

But, as the opening word in this passage should remind us, conflict is a part of the life of the church. In fact, if conflict is completely absent from the life of your church, it might be a sign that your church is not very healthy. It might mean that you don’t care enough about each other or that you don’t care much about the mission of the church to disagree.

And so, in our reading this morning, Jesus reminds us that conflict not only might arise in the life of the church, but is also likely an inevitable part of life in the church. Conflict, you see, is not in itself a bad thing. It will sometimes feel bad, but that does not mean that it is bad.

Handling Conflict Well

Now, when we manage conflict badly, there is no question that it can be very destructive. We have all heard horror stories of churches that tore themselves apart over some disagreement or other, maybe even over some issue that didn’t really matter. But that is precisely why this passage that we read this morning from the Gospel of Matthew is there.

If you want to learn how to make your way through conflict as well as possible, you will not easily find better advice than we have right here in this passage. And it is not just good advice for life in the church. The principles you find right here can apply to any area in your life where conflict might arise – in your family, among your friends or in your workplace. Jesus gives us useful advice on working through conflict wherever it might arise.

One to One

For example, the first piece of advice that Jesus gives is crucial. “If your brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.” The damage that comes from ignoring this simple piece of advice can be enormous, and yet we are constantly tempted to do so.

I mean, put yourself in that situation. Someone has hurt you. They have acted in a way that you feel is insulting or disrespectful. Or maybe you just know from experience that their actions will lead to real problems down the road.

And so, you feel as if something needs to be said or done about the situation. But most of us don’t relish the idea of being the one to do something. Most of us don’t like dealing with conflict. And so what we often try to do is get somebody else to deal with it.

Dragging in Someone Else

In the church, that often means that you go to the minister or to some other leader and you tell them that they need to straighten this other person out.

But Jesus here says that, if the matter is between you and somebody else, you are the one who needs to try to deal with it first. When you drag somebody else into the matter, it might feel like you are doing the right thing, but it often leads to greater problems.

First of all, when you go to someone else first, you can easily make the whole situation worse. You have just aired somebody else’s dirty laundry in front of a third party. And, even if you are completely righteous in the concerns that you raise, that can cause embarrassment and shame.

And sure, you might say that it is fine for them to feel like that, after all, they really did do something wrong. But embarrassment and shame are not emotions that generally help people to become better. In fact, they often provoke worse behaviour in some people. So, if you really want to help people to be better, you will find ways to engage them first in a more private way.

Exceptions

Now, there is an exception. In cases of abuse, harassment or even sexual abuse, going directly and privately to confront the offender is not the right course. If you do that, you are only putting yourself in a position where they can hurt you again and worse. In such cases, you need to go to the community first and the community needs to be courageous in dealing with the problem.

But in a healthy conflict where people are not at risk, conflict is a natural part of human relationship; you need to think carefully before you try to bring in a third party. You need to ask yourself if you are doing it as a power move, trying to leverage somebody’s authority or position to hurt the other person. Turning immediately to power or authority may get you a short-term fix, but I have found that it often creates long-term tensions and problems.

New Possibilities

When you go yourself first to attempt to resolve the issues, it opens up worlds of possibilities. You may leave that conversation with a better understanding and appreciation for each other. If you put in the work to understand why they behaved the way they did, you might help them find ways to express their worries, fears or concerns more constructively. If you skip the step of going to them one-to-one, that opportunity may be lost forever.

So, I believe that it is very important for us to learn from this teaching of Jesus and, as hard as it may be, to go and confront the person ourselves. I know that I myself have sometimes failed to do this. I know we all will fail sometimes. And I have always regretted it in the long term.

But we may face another danger as we deal with conflict. Jesus said that we need to start by dealing with a person directly whenever possible, but he also acknowledged that such intervention will not always be sufficient. And so, he reminded us that we are part of a community.

Neglecting the Community Role

There are people who tend to go too quickly to some third party and can make the situation worse. But there are also people on the other end of the spectrum. They think that it is up to them to fix everybody else’s behaviour.

I think that we have a great example of that sort of person in our reading from Ezekiel this morning. In that passage we discover that Ezekiel has taken an enormous burden upon himself.

Ezekiel reports that God said this to him: “You, mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, “O wicked ones, you shall surely die,” and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand.”

So, Ezekiel believed that God had appointed him to tell everybody else what they were doing wrong. And, if he failed to tell anybody, he would be held responsible for what they did. Now, I do not doubt that Ezekiel was receiving messages from God and that God was quite upset by what people were doing in his community.

Unhealthy Approach

But Ezekiel’s approach of taking all of that on himself was not very healthy. If you read the book of Ezekiel, you will see that everybody hated Ezekiel and his constant criticisms did nothing to reform people’s behaviour. Even worse, the constant burden that Ezekiel carried caused mental health problems for him. He suffered from constant depression and acted in compulsive and obsessive ways, like, for example, the time when he laid silently on his side in public for over a year!

I know Ezekiel was trying to do his best with the message he had received from God, and perhaps God had reasons for allowing him to carry that burden, but the point is that there are better ways and Jesus teaches us those better ways in the Gospel.

Sharing the Burden

So, while it is indeed best to start dealing with conflict directly by dealing with the offender yourself, that is not where it ends. When that fails – and it will sometimes fail because Jesus once again uses that ominous word if: “if you are not listened to.” – you do not need to carry the burden of your sibling in Christ’s failure as Ezekiel did.

Jesus goes on to talk about how to involve the community in careful steps, first calling on “one or two others” and then, as a final recourse, the whole church.

This releases you from the burden of dealing with someone else’s fault. But it also does more than that.

Not About Punishment

The point of it is not what we often assume. It is not about leveraging the community’s punitive power. That is how it has often been practiced through the centuries. Churches have punished people by shunning them, excommunicating them or making their lives miserable in some other way.

Excluding somebody might sometimes be necessary to protect the community, but punishment is never the goal. Punishment itself is one of the least effective ways of helping someone to reform their behaviour.

Healing Power

No, the most helpful way for the community to operate in times of conflict is in its extraordinary healing power. This is the secret power of any community, and it is especially the secret power of the church. Somehow, when the community comes together, it discovers powers of love, forgiveness and reconciliation that transcend the abilities of any individual member.

That is the truth that Jesus was pointing to when he said, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” The context of that verse makes it clear that the presence of Jesus is primarily a healing and reconciling presence in the church.

Part of Healthy Life

Conflict is a part of life. If you in your personal life or we in our congregational life never experience conflict, it may not be because there is no conflict. We may just be avoiding necessary conflict. That is not a good strategy either.

I understand why we may want to avoid it, of course, but we do ourselves no good when we do. Learning to deal with conflict constructively is going to lead us to better outcomes both as individuals and as a congregation.

So, do your best in your dealings with the people in your life who sometimes cause you trouble. Talk with them directly when you can and come into that conversation with an open and listening heart. At the same time, never forget the power in your community to heal and bring reconciliation. Let us leverage the incredible power that Jesus has given us to build a stronger, better community to face the challenges before us.

Please note

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Crieff, 26 July, 2026 © Scott McAndless – Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 18:1-8, Psalm 128, Romans 8:26-39, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

This morning we read six of Jesus’ parables. Six short little stories that seem to be about the most ordinary things – planting a seed, baking some bread, going jewelry shopping. Obviously, Jesus liked telling parables a lot. But why did he like them so much?

Was it because he was such a great storyteller and loved to spin a good tale? Oh, I am sure that he enjoyed the storytelling process, but he had a deeper purpose in telling them. You see, each little story was packed with all the wisdom his disciples needed to live out the reality of the kingdom of God successfully. Each and every one of them.

19-Word Story

Now I can see that some of you are looking at me very doubtfully. Some of these stories are really short, and they all seem to be focused on quite ordinary and everyday things. Take the parable about an ordinary person making ordinary bread. That “story” is only 25 words long in English. It is even shorter, only 19 words, in the original Greek. War and Peace it is not!

And here this preacher is trying to tell us that, in those 19 words, Jesus lays out an entire program for us to follow in this world to establish God’s kingdom. Well, he is going to have to show me some proof before I accept that.

Well, if that is how you feel, then challenge accepted. Let’s look at some of those 19 words and see just how much Jesus is saying to us in the careful choice of them.

Woman

Let’s take the word “γυνὴ” for example. That was the common Greek word for a woman (the word that we get words like “gynocologist” and “misogyny” from). And let us pause at that word for a moment to notice that Jesus made the main character of this story a woman. To tell a story from the point of view of a woman is hardly a shocking thing today, but it was in Jesus’ time. So, let’s assume he didn’t do that lightly.

When people interpret the parables of Jesus, they often make the assumption that the main character represents God. Now, I am not entirely sure that people are always right to do that, but it is a tendency we have.

Imagining God as a Woman

But here’s something I have noticed: I’ve never heard anybody do it with this parable. But why not? Why wouldn’t Jesus have been inviting his listeners to imagine God as a bread-baking woman? And why might we have problems accepting that he might have done so?

In this one word, we have a very important teaching about Jesus’ understanding of how the kingdom of God spreads. Whether the woman in the parable was meant to represent God or not, she certainly represented someone who was not normally given agency or power in that world.

Jesus is teaching us that the kingdom does not require the influence of powerful people to spread. In fact, he’s letting us know that God loves to use the forgotten, the powerless and the outsiders to spread that message in powerful ways. So, whenever we complain that we don’t have the power or influence to have an impact on the world, remember who the main character of this parable of Jesus was.

Yeast

The next word I want to look at is the word yeast or ζύμῃ in Greek. Yeast is an incredible organism. It can take a flat, hard pile of dough and turn it into a light and fluffy loaf. It is the secret ingredient that turns grape juice into fine wine and mash into beer. Together with bacteria, it can also turn milk into yogurt and cheese. Life without yeast would be a miserable existence indeed!

And the people of Jesus’ world appreciated all of that about yeast. But they also had some mixed feelings about it. For yeast was forbidden in Jewish households during the season of Passover according to the law. And so, Jews like Jesus knew very well how pervasive it was.

During Passover, they would have to clean their houses from top to bottom, going deep into every crack and crevice. They knew all too well that yeast had a way of getting everywhere and into everything. They knew exactly how hard it was to get rid of it.

What Jesus Was Saying

So, what do you suppose that Jesus might have been saying about us and about how we can represent the kingdom of God on earth by saying that it is like yeast? I think that, a lot of the time, we fall into the assumption that, for the church to accomplish anything, it has to be big, and it has to be able to use a lot of influence and have connections to people in power.

But if the kingdom is like yeast, that gives us a very different perspective on what we can do. Yeast is added only in small amounts, yet its transformative power is massive. It can pervade and transform a huge amount of dough. How much dough? Well, actually the amount is literally unlimited, as we will see in a moment.

The church doesn’t have to be big to have an impact. It just has to be like yeast. Rather than size, we should be concentrating on infiltrating, bringing life and hope to every bit of dough we encounter. And when we do that, we will discover that, just like yeast in a Jewish household at Passover, the church will be very hard to eliminate from society.

Mixed

But then we come to our next word. It has to do with what the woman does with the yeast. In our English translation, it says she “mixed” the yeast with the dough, but I am here to tell you today that this is not what it says in the original Greek.

The word that is translated as mixed is ἐνέκρυψεν, and that doesn’t mean mixed. It is actually the Greek word that we get words like encryption and cryptocurrency from. It means to hide something. So the woman didn’t mix in the yeast; Jesus said that she hid it in the dough.

That word choice is clearly not an accident. Jesus often described the kingdom of God as something hidden or secret, like, for example, when he said it was like a treasure hidden in a field.

A Hidden Kingdom

So, what does that word, “hid,” teach us about being faithful citizens of the kingdom of heaven today? Well, we live in a world that is largely oriented around attention. If you want to be considered a success these days, you must get a lot of people to pay a lot of attention to you. That seems to be the entire basis of our celebrity culture, our politics and 90% of our social media.

And it is easy for the church to get sucked into that attention culture. We judge our success by how many people are noticing what we are doing. But Jesus understood that attention is not just an end in itself. We are called to bring about transformation, not to get attention. It is through acts of mercy, love and kindness, which are carried out without seeking attention, that we will have the greatest impact on the spread of the kingdom of God.

Measure

The next word I want to look at in this short parable is the word translated as measure. Now, when you read that a woman “mixed” some yeast with three “measures” of flour, how big do you imagine that “measure” to be? I always assumed that we were talking about something about the size of a cup. I mean, with three cups of flour you could probably make a decent loaf of bread.

But the word that is used in this parable does not mean a cup. Nor is it the common everyday Greek word for measure, which would be μέτρον (the word we get meter from). No, the word that is used in this passage is not even a Greek word, but it refers to a specific quantity of flour.

A Hebrew Measurement

Jesus says that the woman took three σάτα of flour. And σάτα is a common Hebrew measure that is used in the Old Testament.

The fact that a Hebrew word appears here is significant because Jesus didn’t speak Greek; he spoke Aramaic, a language closely related to Ancient Hebrew. So, it seems the Gospel writer has translated this entire parable into Greek except for this one word. And I wanted to know why. I hope the reason blows your mind as much as it did mine.

Σάτα is the plural for a Hebrew word for a specific quantity equivalent to 7.3 liters. Think about that for a moment. This woman didn’t take three cups of flour; she took three times 7.3 liters of flour. That is… almost 22 liters of flour. Since we normally buy flour by weight, we are talking about maybe 14 kg of unsifted flour. That is about as heavy as two 10-pin bowling balls.

That’s A Lot of Dough

I have a few questions. How much bread is this woman baking? With 14 kg of flour, I could easily make about 25 loaves of bread. How many peanut butter sandwiches could you make with 25 loaves of bread?

So, what does this tell us about being part of the kingdom of God in this world? It tells us that we might be very small – like a small little bit of live yeast – but we can have a huge impact. But that impact does not come in the form of influence or power. I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where Jesus tells us to pursue those things. It comes in the form of service.

Same Amount as Sarah

But there is one more thing I want you to note about the amount of flour the woman takes. It is exactly the same amount of flour that Abraham tells his wife Sarah to take in our reading from Genesis this morning. And that, I assure you, is not a coincidence.

When three strangers turn up in front of Abraham’s tent, he makes them a seemingly limited offer of hospitality. “My lord,” he says, “if I find favour with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves.”

But then Abraham goes and immediately tells his wife to take three measures – three σάτα – of flour. He tells her to make cakes with what we have established are 14 kg of flour. He also slaughters and cooks an entire calf and makes soft cheese for his guests.

Not Very Practical

Now, such an extravagant meal doesn’t seem very practical. I mean, there is no way that three strangers would eat 25 loaves worth of cheese sandwiches and an entire calf. And how long would they have had to wait for all that food to be prepared? But the practicality is not the point of the story. It is simply an illustration of hospitality that is so extreme that it borders on the ridiculous.

And I suggest to you that it is no mistake that Jesus refers to the same extreme amount of flour in this short parable. The promise in that story in Genesis is that when we practice extreme hospitality, we will encounter God. Because, of course, in case you didn’t know, those three strangers that Abraham offered hospitality to turned out to be God.

Practicing Hospitality

So, what is Jesus promising us with this parable? He is promising that if we practice hospitality as a church, if we welcome people just as they are and no matter where they are coming from with kindness and generosity, something amazing will happen. We will know the presence of God among us. And that, more than anything else, is how the kingdom of God will be made real among us.

So, we have this one parable, and in only 19 words it teaches us so much that we need to learn about the spread of the kingdom of God. What have we learned?

Lessons of the Kingdom

We have learned that the kingdom of God is led by the very people that the world has discounted, that it may be small like yeast, but it also spreads and infiltrates like yeast and is even harder to get rid of. We have learned that it is hidden – that it does not seek attention – but that it has the greater impact on society for that reason.

And we have learned that it is like 14 kg of flour – that it is never cheap or restricted when it comes to reaching out. And, most of all, we have learned that our practice of hospitality towards all is what is going to drive the growth of the kingdom of God into the future.

Not bad. Not bad at all for one little, short story!

Worship on July 26 will be held at Knox Presbyterian Church in Crieff 7156 Concession Road 1, Puslinch ON N0B 2J0 at 10 am. as part of our summer schedule.

The service will not be livestreamed (they do not have the bandwidth at Crieff), but will be posted on the church website afterwards: https://pccweb.ca/knox-crieff/

Sermon title:

Worship this Sunday will be held at Doon Presbyterian Church, 35 Roos St, Kitchener ON N2P 2B9 at 10:00 am. We hope to see you there. Sermon title: “Creation People”

If you can't make it in person, the service will be livestreamed here: https://doonpc.com/messages/

https://youtu.be/txP9AaY5yqU

https://youtu.be/0qfBbTo_yJo

Crieff, 12 July 2026 © Scott McAndless – Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Psalm 119:105-112, Titus 1:5-16, Matthew 5:43-4

Recently I read a book by Rachel Held Evans, a tremendous writer who was, unfortunately, taken from us far too young. As she was writing about some of the ways that we use the Bible, she made the point that she had never in her life heard anybody preach a sermon on Titus 1:12, where it says, “Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.”

We claim to be people who take the Bible seriously. Some even claim to take it literally all the time and to believe everything it says. But, if that is the case, Evans argued, why is no one preaching sermons about how awful people from Crete are?

Why Don’t We Protest Cretans?

Why aren’t Christians marching with signs that declare that anyone who comes from Crete cannot be trusted and must not be believed? Why haven’t we attempted to cancel all celebrities who have any Cretan ancestry? Why aren’t Jennifer Anniston, Zach Galifianakis and Nana Mouskouri, who all claim parents who come from that large island in the Mediterranean, banned in all Christian churches?

I mean, the Bible says it. It couldn’t be clearer. After quoting this line, attributing it to a Cretan prophet, the writer goes on to add, “That testimony is true.” So why don’t we talk about that truth? And why, Evans wanted to know, doesn’t anyone preach about it?

Getting me to Preach About Something

I’m going to confess something to you. There is one way in which you can manipulate me as a preacher. If you suggest to me that no one has ever preached a sermon on a particular passage of Scripture, and especially if you suggest that preachers are afraid of talking about it, there is nothing that will make me want to preach that sermon more!

So, let’s tackle the question of just how lazy and unreliable people from Crete really are. What is such a saying doing in the Bible, and what should we do with it? It is especially difficult because it is such an absolute statement. It doesn’t say that sometimes some people from Crete can be a bit duplicitous. It doesn’t say, “I once knew a guy from Crete, and he told me a lie.” It is a blanket statement about all Cretans.

The Kind of Statement You Hear

I’ve never heard anyone say such things about people from Crete, of course, but it is the kind of statement that you do hear all the time in the world today. You will hear people say awful and ignorant things, things that I am not willing to repeat about, for example, all Palestinians, or all Jews, or all Muslims.

You will also hear generalized statements about what is wrong with all Republicans, or all Liberals, or all Socialists. Even the U.S. president himself just the other day said something about all Iranians being liars.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. If you hang out on the Internet in particular, you will read these kinds of absolute statements all the time. And they are not helpful statements. In fact, I would suggest that they are polarizing our discourse and destroying the fabric of our society more than just about anything these days.

What Was the Writer Saying?

So, I feel like I hear enough of this kind of rhetoric in our modern world. I am not happy to find it in my Bible. But of course, it is in our Bibles. And for me, that means that I need to deal with it and to try and understand what the writer was really trying to get across both to his immediate audience and to us reading it 2,000 years later.

But what if there is more going on in this verse than immediately meets the eye? It doesn’t exactly say that all Cretans are liars. It says that somebody said that all Cretans are liars. Well, who said it? The letter only refers to a prophet, but we actually know who that prophet was.

It was Epimenides of Knossos who said it. In fact, he was famous for saying it. He lived over six centuries before this letter was written, and yet he was still one of the most famous sons of Crete. He was known as a highly respected philosopher, poet and was indeed often called a prophet. This saying of his was so famous because it was known as Epimenides’ Paradox.

I Mudd

There is an old episode of Star Trek called “I Mudd,” in which the crew lands on a planet that is ruled by androids who are perfectly logical. It is an idyllic planet with one flaw: the androids won’t let anyone leave.

So the crew needs to come up with a plan to break android control – kind of like we may need to do once AI takes over our society. (Star Trek is nothing if not a reflection on today’s society.)

So, this is what the crew does. They begin to act in crazy and irrational ways which starts to overtax the data centres of the entire planet. The coup de grace is delivered when Captain Kirk says this about one of the characters to the Head Android, who is named Norman, “Everything Harry tells you is a lie,” Kirk says. “Remember that. Everything Harry tells you is a lie.”

And then Harry says this to the head android: “Now listen to this carefully, Norman. I am... lying.”

And I’m going to give you Norman’s response verbatim because it is so perfect. The android says: “You say you are lying, but if everything you say is a lie, then you are telling the truth, but you cannot tell the truth because everything you say is a lie, but you lie... You tell the truth but you cannot for you lie... illogical! Illogical!” And then the entire planetary system blows up because they cannot process such a statement.

Epimenides’ Paradox

Well, that is a perfect illustration of Epimenides’ Paradox. And Star Trek didn’t invent it; it was invented by Epimenides 600 years before the time of Christ.

When Epimenides said, “Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons,” he said it as a Cretan and one who was highly respected. So how do you suppose he expected people to react? Do you think he was expecting everyone to nod and say, “That testimony is true, Cretans are all truly awful people”?

Of course not! He expected everyone to respond à la Norman and say, “You say Cretans always lie, but if you are a Cretan, then that statement is a lie, but if it is a lie then Cretans do not always lie and you may be telling the truth but if you are telling the truth then the statement is false. You tell the truth but you are a liar... illogical! Illogical!”

That is right. It turns out that Epimenides only said that to illustrate just how irrational it is to make blanket statements about groups of people.

Did the Writer Know?

And, like I say, this saying of Epimenides was famous in the ancient world. It was famous for that very reason. It was used to teach people not to make foolish blanket statements. So, my question is this. When this famous saying appears in the letter to Titus, how is it being used? Is the writer simply taking the statement at face value and affirming that all Cretans are awful people, or is he aware of the original famous intent of the statement? Is he actually affirming the irrationality of saying such things?

This letter is traditionally attributed to the Apostle Paul. And I would affirm that, if Paul wrote it, there is no way that he would have missed the important philosophical meaning of this saying. Paul, in all his letters, writes in such a way that demonstrates that he has been trained in Greek rhetorical and philosophical techniques. Paul would have known about Epimenides’ Paradox.

Modern New Testament scholars do argue, however, that this letter was not written by Paul. They say it can’t have been because it deals with matters and concerns that only arose after Paul’s death. Instead, they say it was written by someone who felt inspired by God to write for the church the wisdom Paul would have given concerning new challenges that had arisen after his death.

I’m not going to delve into the question of authorship today, but let me just say that whoever wrote this letter was no fool. When he tells his readers that this famous saying came from a Cretan philosopher, he must recognize there is a logical paradox at work in it.

He Doesn’t Believe It

But, even more importantly, even though this writer says that “that testimony is true,” He actually doesn’t believe that “Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.” The whole point of this letter is that he wants Titus to help the Christians in Crete to be good, noble and righteous people. That would simply be impossible if they were always liars, vicious brutes and lazy gluttons.

So, I am left with the conclusion that this blanket statement appears in this letter for the same reason that Epimenides said it in the first place. He is writing to teach his readers just how foolish it is to adopt such attitudes towards any group. He is actually trying to show us that stereotyping, racism and exclusion are illogical.

Jesus’ Teaching on the Other

Such a notion should hardly be surprising to Christians, of course, who are followers of the one who challenged his disciples, saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Jesus did not invent the notion of loving your neighbour. It was a command that, even in his time, all Jews agreed was at the heart of the Old Testament Law. But it had always been understood in a very particular way.

People had always had a clear understanding of who their neighbour was. Their neighbour was their fellow Israelite. Their neighbour was someone who shared their culture, language and religion. So, for as long as this teaching had existed, no one would have seen any conflict between loving your neighbour and believing that “Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.”

A Radical Idea

But Jesus shattered such an understanding. Here, and in other famous teachings like the Parable of the Good Samaritan, he showed people that the love they owed to their neighbour extended much further. It extended to the very people that they feel least comfortable loving.

This was a radical idea. But Jesus said you should behave in this way to reflect the true nature of God. He insists you should do it “so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” He taught that by loving those who are most different from us, we become most like God.

Our Polarized World

We live in an increasingly polarized world. And one of the big symptoms of that is that we are surrounded by people who are constantly telling us that we cannot make peace or work with certain groups because they “are always liars,” or because they are all “vicious brutes,” or “lazy gluttons,” or because of some other shared trait that makes them completely evil.

This is not just some minor problem. It is something that is killing thousands of people daily, as it starts wars or prevents them from being ended, as we see at this very moment alongside the waters of the strait of Hormuz. It is threatening to tear whole countries apart, including our own.

An Antidote

Friends, we need an antidote to such rhetoric. And we have it. We have it in Epimenides, who demonstrated that such thinking is deeply illogical and self-defeating. Even more important, we have it in Jesus, who taught us to practice love for the very people we find hardest to love.

And how do we deploy that antidote? There is only one way. We need to start by living out this teaching of Jesus in the most radical way we possibly can. We need to welcome the stranger, to reach out to the hated Samaritan, to actually love a lazy, vicious brute of a lying Cretan enough to realize that they are actually none of those things.

I know it is a small thing to do it ourselves, but that is where true revolutions begin, in the small things. When we show the world that it can be done, new possibilities will arise everywhere. That is the challenge that Jesus has left for us.

A Challenge

So, I’m going to leave you with a challenge. This week, I want you to reach out to someone whom you have been taught is unacceptable because of whatever political, ethnic, religious or other group they belong to. I want you to try to get to know that person as a person, not just as a member of their group. That is where it starts; that is how we begin to bring a better world into view.

Worship on July 12 will be held at Knox Presbyterian Church in Crieff 7156 Concession Road 1, Puslinch ON N0B 2J0 at 10 am. as part of our summer schedule.

The service will not be livestreamed (they do not have the bandwidth at Crieff), but will be posted on the church website afterwards: https://pccweb.ca/knox-crieff/

Watch sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/mPcEMSVqVMY

Hespeler, June 28, 2026 © Scott McAndless – Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Jeremiah 28:1-9, Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18, Romans 6:12-23, Matthew 10:40-42

How many times over the last few years have you been exactly where the Prophet Jeremiah is in our reading this morning from the book that bears his name? “Amen! May the Lord do so!” Jeremiah cries out to another prophet named Hananiah.

He says this because Hananiah has just prophesied that God is about to undo all of the awful things that have happened recently. The nation has been defeated, the king and many leading citizens have been taken away into exile, and the holy temple of the Lord has been plundered of all of its sacred objects. This is disaster piled upon disaster.

Hananiah’s Promise

But it is okay, Hananiah says, because all of it is about to be undone. All of the treasures and all of the people will be returned. The terrible tyrant, Nebuchadnezzar, the cause of all this misery, will lose his power. And it will all happen within two years, which is incredibly fast for the ancient world, more like two weeks for our modern fast-paced world.

And Jeremiah hears this incredible prophecy, and he cries out, “Amen! May the Lord do so!” Because who wouldn’t want that? When it seems as if everything in our world has completely fallen apart, when everything is topsy-turvy, the one thing we long for is for everything to go back to how it used to be.

We recognize, I think, that everything wasn’t perfect before.  There were all kinds of failures, problems and injustices. But when the massive changes come upon us, they overwhelm us so completely that any promise of a return to normalcy can make us cry out, “Amen! May the Lord do so!”

I seem to have been doing that a lot lately. Especially – I don’t really know why – for the last year and a half or so. And I know that I’m not alone.

Economic Turmoil

About a year and a half ago, for some strange and inexplicable reason, our Canadian economy was thrown into turmoil. Our trade relations were suddenly in uncharted territory. And it was scary and disturbing. And what happened?

Well, it turned out that our country was heading into an election. And so, prophets showed up on the scene. They showed up in the form of politicians. And what did those prophets promise? A return to normalcy. They promised that, within a certain number of months, they would restore our trade relations to normal.

It wasn’t just one politician, mind you. They all promised to repair the relationship with our trading partner and to make everything go back to the way it was. They may have had different plans to get there, but they were all heading to the same place.

Canadian Response

And how did we Canadians respond? “Amen!” we cried, “May the Lord do so!” And I know that Canadians most certainly did not all vote the same, but they all seem to have voted with the same motivation for the candidates that each thought had the best way to get there.

And ever since, I assume, everything has been fine because I kind of stopped paying attention. No? Everything is not fine yet? Hmm, that is too bad.

Hormuz Troubles

More recently, it has happened again. All of a sudden, four months ago, shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was shut down. Again, I’ve not been paying attention, but I’m sure that whoever started whatever led to that must have had good reasons which they thoroughly explained.

But it turned out that shipping traffic in that part of the world was really important. Who knew? And the shutdown caused some really big problems all over the world, so much so that everyone was very quickly longing for the Strait to just be open and for things to just go back to normal.

Two Week Prophecy

Many prophets, in our time, particularly seem to hang out on social media where they can speak to the whole people just like the ancient prophets did. And one particular prophet went on a social media platform that he owned to prophesy that everything would be fixed very quickly.

It would all be over, he promised, in a matter of two weeks, tops. Well, maybe four or certainly no more than six weeks, but that everything would very quickly go back to how it used to be. And of course, how did we all respond? “Amen!” we cried, “May the Lord do so!”

Multiple Extensions

And when those two or four or six weeks went by without everything being fixed, we were quickly reassured by updated prophecies. It would just be a couple more weeks. “Amen! May the Lord do so!” We just had to threaten total annihilation and really mean it this time. “Amen! May the Lord do so!” A little inexpensive naval blockade would quickly do the trick. “Amen! May the Lord do so!”

And, well, here we are about exactly four months later. Nothing really seems to have bounced back to the way it was before all of this began. (And it is not as if everything was great before it began but at least the Strait was open, which has become the only thing that matters). But don’t worry, the latest Memorandum of Understanding and the ongoing two months of negotiations enforced by renewed threats is going to fix everything real soon. “Amen! May the Lord do so!”

When Jeremiah cried out, “Amen! May the Lord do so!” I believe that he meant it. He was human. He was just as troubled by what had gone wrong over the last few years as anybody else. He would have been happy to see the exiles released and all the stolen items returned.

Jeremiah’s Addition

But he also added something else. “As for the prophet who prophesies peace,” he said, “when the word of that prophet comes true, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.”

Now, what did he mean by that? He was truly uttering great wisdom that we need to take to heart. He was saying that, when people come along and promise that everything’s going to go back to the way it used to be, we need to receive such a promise with a great deal of skepticism.

Prophetic Agendas

We need to practice skepticism first of all because anyone who says that probably has their own agenda. They want you to feel and react in a certain way, and most often, what they want you to be is complacent so that they can continue to do whatever they want.

They understand that there will always be something soothing and comforting about the promise to take everything back to the status quo. People crave a familiar situation, especially when it seems as if everything has been thrown into chaos. So always be aware that such promises are being made to manipulate you.

God’s Agenda

But there is another, more important reason why Jeremiah counsels skepticism. Jeremiah, himself a prophet who had given more than his fair share of very negative prophecies, has a sense of how God actually works. And, while we may crave what is familiar and comfortable, God has a different priority. God craves what is right and what is just.

Remember what I said before about how, when things get chaotic, we tend to forget the very real problems that existed before the chaos began? Well, we might forget, but God never does. And God knows that the crisis that we are living through today may be a step towards the world that we need to be living in tomorrow. And so, when we are so desperate to go back to how things used to be, God wants us to go through to where we need to be.

A Reckoning

And so I am going to be a bit of a Jeremiah today. “The Strait of Hormuz is about to open wide, you say?” “Amen! May the Lord do so!” say I, but…

And all of Canada’s trade relations will soon be restored, you say? “Amen! May the Lord do so!” say I, but…

But maybe a reckoning on how everything was working before all of this began is needed. And maybe until we can build an economy in which most of the benefits don’t just flow right to the very top and we learn to prioritize sustainability over profitability and environmental concerns over spending on weapons of war, this kind of chaos will continue to appear. We can’t just go back; we have to find a way through.

I am no expert on global affairs and certainly not on economics, so you can certainly write me off as a false prophet just like Hananiah wrote off Jeremiah. But I would caution you to practice the same skepticism towards those prophets who are telling you what you want to hear as Jeremiah did.

Application to the Church

But I guess we are not going to solve the world’s problems here and now, so maybe I ought to take this wisdom of Jeremiah and also apply it a little bit closer to home.

I think that Jeremiah’s word is one that the church needs to hear these days. There is no question that the church is presently living through fast-paced and disorienting change. And what do we often hear as a result? I hear a lot of church people talking about and dwelling on how things used to be.

“Oh, if only we could go back to the days when everyone felt obligated to be in church on Sunday, and there was nothing else to do anyway. Why doesn’t God make things like that again?”

And to that I say, “Amen! May the Lord do so!” But what if God has something for us to learn from where we are now? What if how things used to be was not as perfect as we remember, and God wants us to be a better and more resilient church? What if the church needs to go through, not just to go back? If we just put all our energy into trying to get back to how things used to be, we might miss that opportunity.

Personal Application

But perhaps the hardest place to apply Jeremiah’s wisdom is in your own personal life. I have no doubt that many of you are dealing with something in your life right now that has thrown your lives into chaos. If you’re not there now, you have been there before and, chances are, you will be there again sooner or later. That is just a part of living in this world.

And because of that, I’m sure that you have uttered that prayer of the heart. You have cried out in your soul for God to put things back to how they used to be. And I join my prayer to you, and in my soul I do cry out, “Amen! May the Lord do so!”

I am not the only one who understands the cry of your heart. Your God understands it too. God never wants to subject any of God’s people to such hardships and struggles, and yet they are practically inevitable when you are living in this broken world. So, yes, God totally understands your desire for things to go back.

Going Back or Going Through?

But, at the same time, I want you to consider that there may be no going back to how things used to be and that what God is ready to do is to be with you as you go through your chaos. Consider the possibility that, as you embrace the difficulties that you face, God may meet you to offer strength and wisdom and guide you through to the place where you will be able to find not only consolation but hope.

I understand, of course, all those who long for things to go back to how they used to be. The cry of my heart is “Amen! May the Lord do so!” But I also know that we have a God who calls us to hope. And hope is about much more than just putting things back how they used to be. It is about moving forward with courage and wisdom to meet the challenge of a new day.

Amen! And may the Lord give us such an enduring hope.