Author: Scott McAndless

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Hespeler, September 27, 2026 © Scott McAndless – Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32, Psalm 25:1-9, Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32

The Apostle Paul loved the people in the church in Philippi. Even though he was in prison when he wrote to them, and it was probably dangerous to do so, they supported him freely. The joy that he takes in them comes across on every page of this letter.

But for Paul, something was still missing. The church in Philippi was not united. They were disagreeing and arguing with one another. Perhaps they even had differences over their support for Paul.

And so, in his letter, he entreats them saying, “make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.”

And I do not think that Paul is speaking only for himself here, nor is he just speaking to the situation in Philippi. This is also Jesus Christ’s priority for the church. It is Jesus’ priority for us.

What Jesus Delights in

Jesus takes delight in many things in the life of our congregation. Jesus loves it when we worship with full hearts. Jesus loves our joyful music. And when he sees us doing what we can to feed the hungry, to offer clothing to those who do not have enough, Jesus is ecstatic. When we welcome people as they are, when we listen to their problems to connect them to people who can help them find solutions, it warms Jesus’ heart.

But Jesus never stops looking for that one more thing that would make all of his joy in us complete. He wants us to be united, to share the same mind and the same love and be in perfect accord.

Completing Jesus’ Joy

That is more important to Jesus than that we be seen as successful as a church, or that our pews be full, or that we meet our budget. Just us being united in one mind is enough to bring to Jesus utter and complete joy.

And surely you all want that, don’t you? Just think, you have the power to give to Jesus a joy that is complete in every way. How could you not want to do that?

But there is one problem, isn’t there? We are all different. We all have different concerns, different worries, opinions and priorities. How can we put all of that aside to create that one-mindedness that will complete Jesus’ joy?

Practical Advice

Well, fortunately the Apostle Paul doesn’t leave us hanging on that account. He tells us how we can do that seemingly impossible thing. He starts with some real practical advice. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit,” he writes, “but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others.”

And that is all really good. But I know, and I imagine that you also know, that that is often easier said than done. There are times when, for example, I act in selfish ways or in ways that are only concerned with my own ambition, but I am not always aware of it when I do that. It can also often be very easy to confuse my own interests with the interests of someone else. We are just human after all, and we make those kinds of mistakes all the time.

Same-Mindedness

So, Paul gives us the tool that will allow us to find that same-mindedness. And it is a tool that is available to all of us as followers of Christ. “Let the same mind be in you that wasin Christ Jesus,” he says.

That makes a certain kind of sense, doesn’t it? If we can all manage to let the mind of Christ enter into us, well, then we will all automatically have the same mind, won’t we?

The Mind of Christ

That just leaves one niggling little question. How do we get the mind of Christ into us? It can’t be a question of intellect. We can’t all get as smart as Jesus because he surely has depths of knowledge and understanding that none of us can attain.

But don’t worry, Paul is not done. He goes on to tell us exactly what he means by the mind of Christ. The passage that follows is truly remarkable because most biblical scholars agree that Paul didn’t write it. He seems to be quoting something to them that they have heard before. It is probably a hymn or song that they sing as part of the life of their church.

Ancient Hymn

The Letter to the Philippians was probably written sometime around 60 ad, maybe thirty years after Jesus’ resurrection. But this hymn that Paul quotes is older than that. It has been around long enough to be well known and familiar to everyone. So it might have been written much closer to the time of Jesus.

It could be older than all of the Gospels, older than most of the Letters of Paul. It might even be one of the first things that anybody ever wrote down about Jesus. That is quite something to consider!

And I would, in fact, encourage you to take some time to consider this extraordinary passage. Meditate on it. It will reveal to you aspects of the person of Jesus that probably never occurred to you before.

The Story of the Christ

It is a hymn that celebrates the story of the Christ, but not the story as we usually tell it. There is nothing about a birth in a manger or a ministry in Galilee. It is rather the story of the cosmic Christ. It begins with Jesus being in the presence of God and having the very form of God. Apparently, for Jesus, equality with God is something that is within his grasp.

But having all of that, Jesus simply gives it up. Rather than seizing all of the rights of divinity, as he could, he lets go of it. He empties himself. It is literally the same word you would use for pouring water out of a cup or emptying a bucket. Jesus then takes on a new form, a human form. But not just human, specifically the form of a human who is a slave.

The Twist

And then, of course, comes the big twist in the story of Jesus. Having become a slave, he is exalted and given a name that is higher than any other name in all of creation, a name so exalted that, at the sound of it, every being on earth, in heaven and under the earth will spontaneously bow down.

And why is Jesus given such an exalted title? Is it because of that whole part about him starting out in the very form of God? Is it his divinity that provokes such a reaction?

No, not at all. It is rather his extreme humility, service and obedience that cause God to exalt him. And Paul adds the point, probably the only words in this hymn that he added himself, that this service and obedience were so extreme that they included Jesus’ death on a cross.

Paul doesn’t tell us what the mind of Christ is. Instead, he points us to this extraordinary poem about the story of Jesus. And I believe that right here you will find directions for how you can have the mind of Christ in you.

Original Nature

The poem starts with a statement of the original nature of Christ. “He existed in the form of God.” And for you, having the mind of Christ has to begin with an understanding of your true nature. And no, you are not in the form of God. That is something unique about Christ. But I’ll tell you what you are.

You are created in the image of God. That is something common to all humanity. You are also beloved of God. You are someone for whose sake Jesus was willing to suffer death, even death on a cross. You are someone chosen, redeemed and saved by God through Jesus Christ. All of that has been given to you, not because you deserve it, but because you are willing to put your trust in Jesus and what he has done for you.

Having the mind of Christ begins by making that the foundation of your identity and self-worth. There are many other things about you that make you special and unique, and God loves all you accomplish through them. But knowing that this is the foundation of your self-worth means that you cannot think more highly of yourself than the others in your church who have the same foundation of their worth.

Not Grasping

So, you start by knowing who you are in Christ. The next step to obtaining the mind of Christ is to choose, like Jesus, not to grasp that worth, but to be willing to set it aside. Empty yourself of it. That does not mean that you forget your true worth, of course. Jesus never forgot where he came from. But it does mean that you choose, like him, to devote that worth to service and obedience.

Jesus taught us again and again that we attain our greatest power through service. “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,” he said, “and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave.” (Matthew 20:26-27) And I realize that choosing to serve does not always come easy. Not all of us are equipped to serve in every way, and it may take some discernment to find a place where you can serve. But when you do, Paul’s promise is that you will find that the mind of Christ forming in you.

Choosing Service

How many in this church have found that place where they fit in, whether it be in offering food to the hungry, or leading in worship, serving as an elder or deacon, or in so many other ways? I have seen how you have deepened in your faith and grown in compassion as you have done these things. This is the mind of Christ growing in you.

Exaltation

So, you develop the mind of Christ in yourself by knowing who you are and choosing to put who you are to work in acts of service. But there is one more verse in the hymn that we need to cover. For, even as Jesus was exalted and given a name that is above every other name, we are given a share in that exaltation.

And yes, part of that is that have the hope and expectation that after we die, we will be raised up to a new life in an existence far beyond our present understanding or imagination. That hope sustains us even through the darkest times of this life. And knowing that hope is a part of having the mind of Christ.

Owning the Name

But remember always that this exaltation is not just for another life. For in this world, we claim the exalted title of Christ. That is what we mean when we call ourselves Christians. Owning that name and being able to carry it in this world is something we should cherish always. We have a share in that name that is exalted above every other name in heaven, on earth and under the earth.

And sure, not everyone we meet will recognize the importance of that name. But we know, don’t we? And that knowledge contributes to us having the mind of Christ.

So, when you understand what Paul means by having the mind of Christ, you realize that it is something we can attain in this world. So long as you know the foundation of your worth, so long as you embrace the role of service for which the Holy Spirit has equipped you, and so long as you hold onto the hope and power that is in the exalted name of Jesus the Christ, the mind of Christ will be found in you.

So, hold onto those truths, my friends. For, if we can do so, we will be of the same mind. And won’t you love to know that, in so doing, you will make the joy of Christ Jesus (and Paul) complete.

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Hespeler, September 20, 2026 © Scott McAndless – Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Exodus 16:2-15, Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45, Philippians 1:21-30, Matthew 20:1-16

About a year ago, the Chief Executive Officer of Vineyard Incorporated decided to make a big move to boost profits. He utilized Artificial Intelligence models to automate many of the processes that kept his business running.

He put an AI agent in charge of his supply chain, managing the intricate system that made sure that everything that he needed to produce his product arrived just in time. He put AI agents in charge of answering his phones and responding to all questions and orders. He had another AI agent running the production fields, managing cultivation, fertilization and monitoring for pests and ripeness.

Generative AI was also put to work creating advertisements and a social media strategy, flooding the internet with posts.

Low Labour Costs

The CEO congratulated himself that these initiatives allowed him to lower his payroll drastically. He went down to the labour market and hired just a few people to prompt the AI and to take the blame for any mistakes that it made. He promised to pay them one denarius, which seemed far too much for what he was asking them to do, but he recognized that he needed to keep at least a skeleton crew on hand.

Now, it was the nature of Vineyard Incorporated’s business that its earnings all came at once. For most of the year, there was just the constant cost of keeping the operation running, but the crucial harvest season was when all the profits came in to cover the costs and make a big fat bonus out of the rest.

Big Savings

The CEO watched with glee throughout the year as the numbers came in. Costs were down across the board, which meant that when the profits finally came in, the bonus would be huge. He could hardly wait!

For example, the cost of the advertising they were creating was down 80% because there was no need to pay graphic artists or creative directors. What did it matter that it all looked like AI slop and there was nothing to set it apart from advertising that every other company was doing? It was so cheap that they could put it everywhere.

And so it all went until the long-anticipated earnings season came. As soon as the AI sensors indicated the grapes were ready to harvest, the CEO ordered someone to push the button to get the harvesting equipment ready.

Problems

That was when the CEO realized that his reliance on AI might have created some problems. It turned out that people weren’t engaged by advertisement that was just AI slop. The CEO realized that he would have to reduce prices in order to engage his customer base.

And then, the customer service AI hallucinated an offer for a product that didn’t exist, resulting in the need to process numerous refunds. And it turned out that the monitoring AI had also failed to properly detect an infestation of a particularly troublesome pest – something that the old, experienced hands would have picked up on right away.

That was not even the worst problem that was surfacing. The AI company that had sold him the agents in the first place realized he was utterly dependent on them for his entire operation. They jacked up their prices and threatened to walk away with all his operational data if he did not pay.

Last Minute Hiring

So it was that, at the last minute, the CEO realized that the only thing that would save his earnings season was if he went and hired a labour force that could deal with all of the problems that were coming to light. In fact, he might just end up hiring more people than he would have in an ordinary season before all of his cost-saving initiatives.

He went to the labour marketplace, but it was very difficult to find people who were willing to work for him and clean up the big mess. The only workers he could find were temporary foreign workers who had been brought in for the season.

The good news was that these workers worked very hard for low pay. The bad news was that the temporary agency that managed and obtained them charged fees that were so high that it cost as much for one of them to work for the season as it would have cost to hire an ordinary worker for the whole year.

He Thinks He Did a Good Job

In the end, the CEO had to explain the whole debacle to his board. And so, he went in and told them what a good manager he was. He explained that he had made bold moves by cutting the cost of labour and that, even though profits were down over the whole season, his discipline of the workforce would surely bear long-term fruit. The entire board laughed at his very bad pun.

After that, they decided to use the money that they had received from the recent government tariff refunds to fund a huge stock buyback to boost their stock price. They ended the quarter with big bonuses all around.

Meanwhile, back in the vineyard, the few workers who remained after all the temporary workers had left looked around at the ragged vines. Expert hands were needed to prune and prepare them for the next season, and they knew that they had lost such expertise. It looked like next year’s harvest would be even more dismal.

Traditional Interpretation

The traditional interpretation of Jesus’ Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, as you may know, is to see it as an allegory.

The owner of the vineyard is seen as God. The workers who start at the beginning of the day are seen as the Jews, who have a long-term relationship with God through the Law. The workers who come later in the day are the Gentiles who come to faith in God through Jesus later.

This is, to be clear, a perfectly valid way to read the parable. I do not doubt that the early church read it that way. They used this parable to work through the issues they had regarding feelings of resentment between Jews and Gentiles within the church regarding the keeping of the law. That may even be the main reason why Matthew included this parable in his Gospel.

More Than One Interpretation

But the powerful thing about the parables of Jesus is that they are never meant to be read just one way. And the people who heard Jesus tell it the first time wouldn’t have been thinking about the tensions between Jews and Gentiles that wouldn’t surface for several decades.

Instead, they would have heard a story that would have sounded pretty familiar to them – a story about labourers and the people who employed them. In fact, many of them would have been such labourers who had come straight from working in the fields to listen to Jesus tell this story. They had only just been paid the usual rate of one denarius a day for their work.

Because of that other, commonly accepted allegorical interpretation of this parable, there are people who would say that this parable is not allowed to be a commentary on capitalism or on the relationship between workers and owners. But I say that, if you are telling the Bible what it is and is not allowed to mean, you are probably interpreting it wrong.

So, I have always been willing to see this parable as having something to say about economic issues and how they affect our lives here and now, and not just about what happens after we die.

Shifts in Attitude

Our world has shifted enormously over the last few decades. Back in the 50s and 60s, it was taken for granted by most that workers, those who did the labour and contributed their time, energy and talents to production, made a worthwhile contribution to what was produced and should be compensated accordingly.

But since then, we have been steadily fed the message that actually those who contribute capital and investment or have ownership are the most important part of production and that they should realize the greater part of the profits.

Now, of course, it is not one or the other. Many enterprises could not exist or grow without investors. They should expect a return. But it is a question of balance, and we have seen that balance shift away from labour and toward capital in terms of who deserves to get more.

Questions We Need to Consider

With all that going on, Jesus’ parable seems to raise the kinds of questions we need to be thinking about today. How much is labour worth? How much should the vineyard owner be able to profit from the labour of the workers?

And Jesus throws an interesting twist into the story. The workers do everything right. As often happens, the people on the shop floor are the ones who have a real sense of how the work needs to get done.

It is the owner who makes a huge mistake in Jesus’ parable. He wants to save money and doesn’t hire enough people to get the work done before the grapes go bad. He has to race desperately back to the market several times to hire more workers and ends up paying more workers for the full day than he should have had to.

He Thinks He’s Good

And the owner in Jesus’ parable also doesn’t even see what a bad manager he is. This is often masked in our translations. When the owner tries to explain why he had to spend so much on his workers, he says (in our translations), “Or are you envious because I am generous?”

But that is not what it says in the original Greek. It actually says, “is your eye evil because I am good?” That is right; he is actually boasting that he is so good at his job that everyone is jealous of him.

That makes no sense when you realize that he has actually completely botched the entire harvest operation, and so perhaps that is why translators offer the other translation.

But though it doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t what he says remind you of so many executives who totally destroy the profitability of the companies that they are running? They run the place into the ground, everyone gets laid off and yet somehow, they end up getting a nice big bonus, a golden parachute and are soon put in charge of another company. No wonder they think they are so good at their jobs! The boast, “is your eye evil because I am good?” really does seem like the kind of thing that they would say.

Continually Fresh Interpretations

So, the parable can and absolutely should be applied to the various struggles we deal with in our society around labour, profit and enterprise. I have preached on this parable myself many times before and made that very point.

Every time I come back to it, I see something new – not because the parable has changed but because our society has changed. These days it is the coming of Artificial Intelligence that is eroding the power of the workers and emboldening the wealthiest, but that is just another weapon in a war that has been raging for a long time.

Your Application

This is the point in the sermon where I usually tell you what to do with all of this. I like, whenever possible, to give you a nice and well-defined action that you can take with you and live out the Gospel in the coming week.

But Jesus didn’t usually tell parables to get people to take specific actions. He told them to challenge people to change the way that they thought. He wanted to give people new perspectives on God and on the world.

Let the Story Challenge Your Perspective

So, I'm not going to give you a specific action or even a specific interpretation of this passage today. What I want you to do with it is what I think Jesus intended you to do. Take the story with you. Chew on it over this coming week.

Put yourself in the position of the worker. You are forced to sit in the marketplace and hope that someone might hire you for the day and even pay you enough to live. But you know that you are ultimately at the owner’s mercy.

Put yourself in the position of the owner who discovered late in the day that he actually did need the labour of the workers more than he thought and that they were actually worth their pay.

But most of all, let this story of Jesus challenge the comfortable assumptions you make every day about who really contributes to society and who doesn’t, who takes and who gives, who deserves a return for what they have put in and who doesn’t.

Jesus told these parables for exactly that reason. When people listened to these stories and let them challenge the assumptions that they carried with them, that was when they discovered the true nature of the kingdom of God.

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Hespeler, September 13, 2026 © Scott McAndless – Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Exodus 14:19-31, Exodus 15:1b-11, Romans 14:1-12, Matthew 18:21-35

Pharaoh was enraged. Here he was, the greatest ruler on the face of the earth. He was everybody’s favourite Pharaoh – his advisors told him that all the time.

And yes, it was true that the media were putting out polls that said that regular Egyptians were turning against him, that he was the least popular Pharaoh in history, but that was all obviously all fake news.

People were just upset by all of the recent plagues. Frogs and locusts, boils and hail have a way of souring everybody’s mood. But nobody should blame Pharaoh for any of that. As he had told them, all of that was the fault of his predecessors who had neglected the monuments of Egypt for so long, or something like that.

Troublesome Hebrews

Besides, he had been busy with the foolish demands of the Hebrews who were asking for permission to travel into the desert for three days to have some festival for their God.

He kept reminding the slaves that they were being ungrateful. After all, they had been treating Egypt so unfairly for generations – sitting by pots of meat and eating their fill of bread without even paying for any of it!

So, after one of the latest plagues, he told them he had had enough and he was cutting them off. He didn’t need anything that they produced, and Egypt would be better off without them.

Negotiation Tactic

It was, of course, a negotiating tactic – the art of the deal. He expected them to cave and offer to do even more labour for smaller rations of bread and meat.

But then they went and walked away from the negotiating table. Actually, they walked away from the country altogether! They went into the desert and, over three days later, there was no sign of them returning.

It was quickly becoming clear to everybody that Egypt did need them. In fact, the slaves were vital to Egypt’s ongoing prosperity. They supplied everything from energy to food.

So Pharaoh summoned his chariots, the most advanced fighting force on the face of the earth, and headed out after them. The army easily found their trail and followed it to the shores of the Red Sea.

That was a sore point too. Hadn’t Pharaoh himself decreed just the other week that the body of water should henceforth be called the Sea of Egypt! And yet people defiantly continued to call it what it had been called for centuries.

The Night Before

And there, by the shores of the Sea of Reeds – I mean, the Sea of Egypt – they finally caught up with them. The Hebrews looked so pathetic, huddled up against the shores of the sea. It was late in the day when they found them, and the weather was odd. An unusual wind was blowing strongly and steadily out of the East and between the Egyptian chariots and the fleeing Hebrews was a strange and disorienting cloud. So Pharaoh decided to stand down his troops and let them rest until morning.

Attack!

As the morning sun rose behind the wind that still blew out of the East, the cloud finally dissipated. Pharaoh looked up and saw that the Hebrews were actually trying to flee across the seabed where the waters had retreated before the wind. What fools! The soggy ground would only slow them down. His charioteers would sweep them away.

Pharaoh shouted for the cavalry to attack. He laughed aloud as his team took off at a gallop. This was going to be so easy; it would almost be fun. But, just as he thought that, he noticed that there was something wrong with his chariot. The muck of the sea bottom was clogging the wheels so that they turned with difficulty.

Egypt as Symbol of Empire

Throughout the Bible, Egypt and its various rulers seem to stand in for the worst examples of empire. Even when the biblical authors are actually concerned with the evils of empires such as Babylon, Persia or Alexander of Macedon, they tell stories of Egypt and how bad Pharaoh was. These stories help them to understand the actions and motivations of these other powerful empires.

And it seems to me that we might need to draw on some of that wisdom today. Like it or not, we seem to be living in a moment in time that is all about authoritarian leaders trying to build empires.

Rise of Authoritarians

I am not picking on any particular authoritarian here. Everywhere you look these days, you seem to see strongmen who are trying to seize land to build up their empires.

It could be President Xi in China putting down protests in Tibet while planning an invasion of Taiwan. It could be Vladimir Putin seeking to rebuild the old Russian Empire by invading Ukraine or Benjamin Netanyahu bombing and seeking to seize territory in Lebanon and Gaza.

And of course, there is another guy who has already taken control of the country of Venezuela and has set his sights on such far-flung bits of geography as Cuba, Greenland and the Strait of Hormuz. He also won’t stop talking about making Alberta or perhaps the whole of Canada into his 51^st state.

The Lure of Empire

And I realize that your automatic response to some or all of these empire builders is to reject them, maybe even hate them. But let’s stop for a moment and try to understand why we are seeing so much of this kind of activity today.

We are living in uncertain times. Things are changing at a disorienting pace and in some disturbing directions. Artificial Intelligence is upsetting, maybe even destroying, the labour market. Huge technology companies are taking control of every aspect of our lives and all of our information. Debts have grown to previously unthinkable levels.

Understandable

In many ways, it is not surprising that people are latching onto various authoritarian leaders in these times. They are promising a return to normalcy through strength. And, when it turns out that they cannot actually bring about a return to normalcy, these authoritarian leaders naturally turn to conquest as a way of protecting their power.

It has always worked like that – a tale as old as time. It is how the Pharaoh came to power in Egypt and how it has worked ever since.

So let us not be angry at those who, in uncertain times, turn to such leaders. Our anger at them won’t change anything. But the question we need to ask as believers is: where is God? What is God doing to bring justice to the world in such times?

A Story for Trying Times

When the people of Israel despaired throughout their history as they suffered at the hands of various empires, they kept coming back to this story. The story of the battle of the Red Sea was what convinced them that their God would save them. It gave them hope in the face of trying times. That’s why they kept telling it.

The battle of the Red Sea was not a battle that the Hebrews won by superior weaponry or tactics. They were at a tactical disadvantage in every way you can imagine. They were just running away and doing it on foot. The Egyptian chariotry was the most advanced military force that the world had ever seen and would ever see for many centuries. It should have annihilated them. But the Hebrews won.

A Strange Kind of Victory

And sure, you can say that God won the battle for them. But God didn’t do that by making them stronger or better fighters. God didn’t allow them to defeat the Egyptians on Egyptian terms. Instead, what did God do? God clogged the chariot wheels. God turned the Egyptian advantage into their downfall.

And I believe that that is God’s favourite approach. God loves to use the very things that the powerful put their trust in, the very things that they think make them invincible, to bring about their defeat.

Ukraine

We are seeing that very thing playing out in our world right now. When, for example, Russia invaded Ukraine over four years ago, the consensus everywhere was that Ukraine could not resist them. Russia had all the advantages with their conventional military resources, equipment and population. But things didn’t quite work out that way.

The chariot wheels got clogged. That happened literally when whole convoys were unable to advance through the Ukrainian mud in the initial assault. But it happened even more so as Ukraine transformed warfare itself by developing drone technology that was relatively cheap to fly but crushingly expensive to defend against. Russia’s strength became its weakness as its resource base and economy have been targeted.

Iran

The shorter-term Iran war has played out in similar terms. Iran is outmatched in almost every way. It doesn’t have the military or equipment to defend itself against the largest and best-funded military force that the world has ever seen. And yet, it hasn’t been crushed. Using relatively inexpensive drones and other weapons, it is holding its own and requiring the Americans to spend many resources with little to show for it.

Nothing Good

And of course, none of this is good. It is terrible to see so many lives being sacrificed and so much destruction playing out. I take no pleasure in it; neither does God. I recognize that the Russian soldiers who are dying in Ukraine are victims of empire just as much as the Ukrainians are.

But the principle at work is this: If you are going to build empires with chariots, God is going to clog those chariot wheels. If you think you are going to make yourself safe by funding enormous militaries, by invading and bombing girls’ schools and civilian infrastructure, God will turn your strength and your callous disregard for life against you.

And sure, we might wish for God to act differently. We’d prefer it if God just took Pharaoh out before he decided to enslave the world. But, for whatever reason, the world doesn’t work like that. Maybe God has something for us to learn from seeing how those chariot wheels get clogged.

Personal Application

There is a lesson in this for you in your personal life. How many of us try to build a sense of safety and security for ourselves through dominance? You think that if you control everything around you and make people behave as you like, you will have a good life.

To the extent that you do that, you are deploying your chariots. If you do that, sooner or later something will come along to clog the wheels. And when that happens, you will have a choice. You might choose to double down and assert more control. That will put you into a downward spiral of more loss of control, more clogged wheels. You will be dealing with anger and resistance.

Or, when the chariot wheels of your life are getting clogged, you can make another choice. You can choose to let go of control, embrace the stories that other people in your life are living through and give them the freedom to be their own people on the other side of the Red Sea. None of that may sound easy, but it might be exactly the new thing that God is calling you to do.

Finding Hope in Difficult Times

So, apply this in your personal life. Watch for where in your life the chariot wheels are getting clogged. Be ready to ask why and to find other ways to move forward in your life than by blowing people away with your chariotry.

And, if you ever become discouraged when you see the powerful of this world deploying their chariots, if you see empires on the move, sweeping all away before them, and the tech lords and oligarchs of this world are seeking to take control of all of our data and our political systems, and people start renaming lakes on a whim just because they can, watch out for the mud that will absolutely start clogging the chariot wheels of those who build empires. God just loves to clog those wheels.

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

https://youtu.be/CloO9ebHufY

Watch sermon video here:

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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/