A Meditation for our fourteenth week of Ordinary Time in 2026

It is far too easy to not see what God is doing around me. I’ve been a part of a church community that saw God involved in everything. I’ve also been a part of a church community that seldom ever saw God involved in our world. It doesn’t seem like either of these is the reality for how our God is engaged in our world. Today’s gospel reading from Matthew (11:16-19) starts with Jesus confronting people for their inability to see what God was doing right before their eyes. Jesus shows us that they were preoccupied with expectations for how God could (or must) act. I very easily get the sense from what Jesus says here that the way that community understood God would forever keep them from hearing or seeing God. 

So what do I look for? How do I hold onto my ever-growing understanding of God without closing myself off to the unexpectedness of our God? It can be really easy for me, two thousand years later, reading books written by people from the inside when nearly everyone was an outsider to Jesus. Had I lived then, it is far more likely that I would have been an outsider than one of the handfuls of people who lived with Jesus. So I’m grateful to live now when I get to live with God through all Christ Jesus has done for me and for the world. Thankfully, as that section of Matthew comes to a close, Jesus tells us that “wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” Both John the Baptist and Jesus were vindicated by their deeds. It was the things they did that proved to us who they were. They proved who they were in how they did what they did and how they lived.

When I read passages like this in the Bible, which point me towards the idea of deeds or fruitfulness, my mind takes me right to the fruit of the Spirit. This passage in Galatians chapter five gives me a description of the fruit of God’s spirit. For a long time I had heard people talk about these as fruits, but the text is quite clear that it is fruit, singular. This is important because it shifts how I understand it. If it was fruits, then each attribute can function on its own. That any expression of joy or patience is of God. 

However, if he is talking about one singular fruit, this shifts our reading. Each of the characteristics becomes an attribute of the fruit. Just like an apple may be crisp, sweet, firm, red, and have seeds in the center. This doesn’t make something an apple simply because it has seeds inside or is the color red. No, all these attributes together describe what is an apple. I am convinced that it is the same with the fruit of the Spirit. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” For example, patience without kindness is not from the Spirit of God. As an Urban Monastic, I am called to embody the fruit of the spirit. To celebrate the ways we see this fruit in our lives and to prayerfully work through the ways we lack its presence.

After explaining that John the Baptist and Himself are vindicated by their deeds, Jesus continues by inviting others, by inviting me, to follow Him. “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Indeed, my yoke is pleasant, and my burden is light.” Within the invitation to follow is such a beautiful way to talk about an embodiment of the fruit of the Spirit! 

Of all the sayings from Jesus we have, this is one of the hardest for me to believe. What do you mean, Jesus? Taking up my cross, dying to myself, and following you to the ends of creation is a light burden? That is a pleasant yoke? I’ve been in our world too, and I know that its yoke and burden are neither pleasant nor light. Yet, the more I learn to trust in Jesus, the more pleasant my life becomes. The more I let the weight of the cross rest upon my shoulder, the lighter it becomes. There is a beautiful upside-down reality to life with our God. It feels for a long time that following Jesus is swimming against fast-moving currents. Then, it just doesn’t feel that way anymore. Something has changed. 

This change was not something that happened once, like a switch being flipped and it was all different. This change is ongoing and continues. The yolk gets more pleasant. The burden becomes even lighter. Still, there is work to do, love to share, love to receive, and prayers to offer up to God. My life is not perfect, far from it, but the work grows in pleasure, and the weight on my shoulders is lighter. I don’t believe my experience is exceptional, but I have begun the work of seeing what God is doing. I treasure deeply in my heart the ways I’ve seen our God show up in our world with the love, kindness, and joy that I see in Jesus. The Spirit of our God is real, and their fruit is divine. I can think of no greater pleasure!

May Jesus sustain us as we take on His yoke and His burden.

Readings for the 14^th Sunday of Ordinary Time · Year A

Sunday readings according to the Revised Common Lectionary.

Photo Credit
Paul Prins on 14 April 2026 in Santiago de Compostela, Spain