A lectionary meditation for our eighteenth week of Ordinary Time in 2026

When I think about a Christian faith that has moved beyond being an intellectual exercise, I find myself thinking about an embodied faith. When faith gets embodied, it needs more than my mind, my thoughts, and my agreement. This has been one of the most life-giving and most difficult shifts I’ve yet to experience with Jesus. It has profoundly transformed the way I relate to God, to others, and to myself. I find myself continuing to become more firmly rooted in the tangible tenderness, grace, and love of our God and our Christ. It has also led me to question many of my own experiences of existing. There are many memories that my embodied faith has me understanding differently today.

This Sunday we have the story of Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis and one story of Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes. Jacob had found himself alone at night when a strange man came and wrestled with him until dawn. The narrative reveals that Jacob had such control over this person that they had to ask to leave. As their dialog unfolds, Jacob demands a blessing and receives one. Jacob also receives a new name, Israel. Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, saw the face of God and lived. He wrestled with God and was able to keep God from leaving. 

I know that this is not really what happened. I know this because I’ve read the rest of the Bible. The God who had Jonah swallowed by a fish, drowned a part of the Egyptian army in the sea, and instantly killed any that touched the Ark of the Covenant was not overpowered and detained by Jacob. He could wrestle with God only because God chose to wrestle with Jacob. God chose to stay with Jacob throughout the night and bless him in the morning.

None of us gets to see into the mind and thoughts of God. The transcendence of God means that God is beyond our comprehension. So, each of us gets to know God in part. I can only ever notice and experience the ways God moves through our world from within my own mind. My experiences are real, and I am able to understand them because of what I have previously experienced. It also means that I can only know myself, my loved ones, and our world in part. While we cannot know the mind of God, I do believe we can come to understand and know the character of God. There are moments in my life where I am surprised by the ways my body reacts to situations, conflict, celebration, and grief. These are ways that I can understand my character. My thoughts exist in my mind, but my character is revealed through my whole body. Character is embodied.

It seems improbable to me that anyone, even Jacob, could detain God. It seems true that the love and compassion of our God let Jacob fight for the blessing he longed to receive.  I also know what Jacob may have felt, that he had earned his blessing from God. That his strength, power, and determination earned the blessing from God. The way God’s love leads to His generosity is hard for my mind and body to comprehend. It is hard for me to comprehend even as I get to read the gospels and see God clearly in Jesus on the cross. The ways that the compassion of God moves through our world are hard to grasp and hold onto. God moves in ways that are so unlike our world. When I look around, I see a world that seems to reject those who are not cutthroat, fighting for their piece, and harming others to defend what they’ve gotten. It may be that a part of God’s compassion is meeting us in ways that we can understand. For Jacob, it may be that wrestling with God was the way he could understand.

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus had been teaching before He went to withdraw into the desert. The way that  I see Jesus moving from public ministry into private retreat feels like the two parts of a breath. It was a rhythm that sustained Him. He would retreat to rest, be with God, and be prepared for what was to come. Yet here, this crowd of thousands continues to follow Him as He was seeking retreat with God and trying to make silence. I would not respond like Jesus here. I would find my rest even if it meant walking through the night until the crowd had given up following. Jesus saw them and had compassion upon them. He turned back towards them and healed their sick. What followed after was the miracle where five loaves and two fish fed thousands with baskets to spare.

This miracle seems to have gone unnoticed by the crowd, but it was clearly visible to the disciples with Jesus. They saw how meager the amount of food was when it was blessed by Jesus. Then each one of the twelve returned with a basket full after making sure everyone was fed. The crowd was unaware of the ways that God’s compassion moved through their midst and satiated their appetites. The compassion of God did not change the will of God. Compassion is a part of the character of God. Compassion is the will of God. 

There are many voices in our world and in our Church that are well-intended but treat compassion as something to be earned. The things these people have learned from our world seem to be similar to what Jacob had learned. I’m thankful I have the person and example of Jesus to follow. I have Christ victorious over death, who starts with love, and it is His kingdom that I get to proclaim. It is a kingdom I proclaim with the same compassion as Jesus. That I proclaim through my kindness, my joy, my peace, and everything else overflowing from Fruit of the Spirit and the love of God I get to embody.

One of the reasons I love the monastic life is that it invites me to make time in silence with God. I wonder what kind of night Jacob could have had with God if he had chosen to sit in silence and listen to what God might have said. I wonder what might have happened if Jacob had done what Jesus was trying to do before His compassion returned Him to the crowd. How different would our Bible be if in Jacob’s solitude, he had sought God with prayer and silence instead of seeking to detain God through wrestling with demands to be made? God was compassionate with Jacob, and God is compassionate with me. I know that when I make time to listen to God, He meets me with generosity, tenderness, and compassion. Jesus continues to teach me many things and helps me continue to become more like Him and His character.

Every year I continue to learn new ways of seeing His compassion at work in myself, and in our world. Every year His compassion becomes more miraculous. There are even moments where I am invited to be a conduit for the compassion of Christ. Just this past week it looked like me buying a baguette for a man who asked me for one. I prayed over that bread as I left the store. I blessed it, but it didn’t become more bread. Even better, it brought more love and compassion to my neighborhood. Lord, help me to learn to see your miraculous compassion that I might share in it and participate in it. As the psalmist proclaims in Psalm 17.

God, I call upon You for You will answer me; *
    incline Your ear to me and hear my words.
Show me Your marvelous loving-kindness, †
    Savior of those who take refuge at Your right hand *
    from those who rise up against them.

May Jesus help us to see the compassion-soaked lives we live.

Readings for the 18^th Sunday of Ordinary Time · Year A

Sunday readings according to the Revised Common Lectionary.

Photo Credit
Paul Prins on 25 July 2026 in Rotterdam, Netherlands