Becoming Fruit of the Kingdom

  

                        Pulpit Rock, New Bedford, New Hampshire by Fr. Matt

When we open Matthew 21:43, Jesus looks us right in the eye and delivers a blunt warning: “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” If we treat this parable like a literal story, the landowner looks completely foolish—sending his servants and his own son back into a den of known, murderous cutthroats. But it’s an allegory, and it hits a raw human tension. We love to cast ourselves as the chosen ones, feeling all warm and special. The uncomfortable truth is that we in the Church need to cast ourselves as the wicked tenants. If we hoard the vineyard for ourselves, protecting our comfort while refusing to nurture new growth, we fail the master. The vineyard does not exist to keep us safe inside the walls; it exists to yield a harvest that feeds the next generation.

 

Our culture, and sometimes our institutional structures, tell us that success is about self-preservation, protecting our traditions, and passing rigid regulations to keep things orderly. We want to sit comfortably inside our fence lines. But the radical message of the Cross completely shatters that desire for safety. The Cross demands that we pour ourselves out for the margins. The one and only true church isn’t found in building taller fences to protect our tradition; it is found in rolling up our sleeves and tearing down those fences to share our harvest and reflect Christ's compassion for the vulnerable.

 

I just spent three intense days gathered in Manchester for our General Synod, surrounded by heavy administrative agendas, bishop elections, and over thirty ordinances. Yet, the real compass for the future of this church didn’t come from a committee report; it came from the floor when a lay delegate stood up and asked what we were going to do to bring people back. Our lay delegates shared their honest feedback: they don't want slick marketing, religious jargon, or superficial entertainment. They are hoping for a future where local parishes look outward, producing tangible fruits for others—whether it is growing literal veggies on the church lawn to feed the hungry, providing a safe space for an immigrant community to worship, or offering a warm meal and a listening ear to a lonely neighbor.

 

We worry so much about finding the perfect programmatic map for church growth, yet we constantly get turned around. I experienced this firsthand recently while walking the trails near Pulpit Rock. I trusted conflicting advice, ignored the need for a real map, and ended up completely lost in the woods. When I finally found a trail out, it led to the wrong parking lot, leaving me completely stranded. Disoriented and embarrassed, I knocked on the door of a nearby surveyor company. I was met not with judgment, but with incredible kindness. The owner knew exactly where I belonged and personally drove me miles back to my vehicle. I felt like an absolute fool, but I was deeply grateful I got lost because it allowed me to meet a wonderful Good Samaritan. Perhaps that is the real secret to bringing people back to our pews: we need to stop acting like owners of the vineyard and start becoming Good Samaritans to our neighborhoods in desperate need.

 

Producing the true fruits of the kingdom means looking directly at the young adults in our neighborhoods. Many are fighting quiet, invisible battles with severe real-world isolation, career anxiety, and hidden mental health struggles. They are not a demographic project to be managed; they are the very people Christ calls us to welcome into the vineyard. Older parishioners possess a lifetime of wisdom, stability, and warmth that this generation desperately craves. You can make a profound difference, step into their lives, and invite them into our church community through these concrete actions:

• Offer Practical Mentorship: Many young adults are navigating complex career choices, financial decisions, or family transitions without a strong support system. Offer your professional expertise or life wisdom freely, with no strings attached.
• Host Intergenerational Dinners: Invite a few young adults into your home for a home-cooked meal. Create a space for authentic conversation where they are listened to as equals, not lectured.
• Provide "Life Skills" Workshops: Share practical talents that are fading between generations. Host casual church events to teach car maintenance, basic cooking, budgeting, sewing, or home repairs.
• Create Screen-Free Spaces: Open the church for quiet hours, community gardens, or book clubs that encourage people to slow down, unplug, and connect face-to-face.
• Practice Non-Judgmental Listening: When young adults do walk through our doors, welcome them exactly as they are. Skip the pressure to join committees right away. Instead, focus entirely on learning their names, hearing their stories, and validating their struggles.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends, grant us the grace to step out from behind the safety of our church doors and labor zealously in your vineyard. Open our hearts to the honest feedback of our laity, honor our roots of protecting the vulnerable, and help us produce a crop of unconditional love that feeds a hurting world.

 

A Vision for a Thriving PNCC Church

  

                    Pulpit Rock, New Bedford, New Hampshire by Fr. Matt

Dear Friends,

As we sit together here in Manchester for the General Synod, surrounded by structural ordinances and heavy agendas, a moment from our floor discussions stands out as the true compass for our future. A lay delegate—a dedicated woman in her seventies—stood up and asked our bishop nominees a direct, heartfelt question: What specific program would you recommend to bring people back to our church?

 

It was a beautiful, honest question that cuts right through all our administrative bureaucracy and committee jargon. But if we are completely honest with ourselves, new "programs" aren't going to save a dying denomination. National research from groups like the Barna Group reveals that young adults (Gen Z and Millennials) are actually returning to church in surprising numbers right now—but they aren't looking for superficial entertainment, slick marketing, or a parish fish fry. They are looking for authenticity, tangible justice, and deep spiritual practice.

 

If we want the PNCC to do more than just survive—if we want it to truly thrive for coming generations—we have to roll up our sleeves, look at what young families are struggling with every day, and adopt these three specific behaviors:

• First, we must shift from institutional defense to fierce, hands-on solidarity with our margins.
  Data shows that young people leave when they see Christianity as a social performance rather than a life-changing faith. To them, a church that preaches Jesus must act like Jesus. Today, pastors like Fr. Erick in Las Vegas and Fr. Robert in San Antonio are watching their Hispanic parish families live in constant fear of discrimination and deportation. We need to honor our 1890s roots—when the PNCC was founded to protect Polish immigrants from prejudice—by standing firmly with our Hispanic brothers and sisters now. That means rolling up our sleeves to establish real legal clinics, turning our church properties into safe sanctuary spaces, and building emergency support funds for families whose breadwinners are detained.
• Second, we must replace rigid perfectionism with flexible, family-focused liturgy.
  Young parents today face intense daily performance pressure and exhaustion. The last thing they need is to feel judged or anxious when their toddlers make noise in the pews. Research shows that young adults deeply value traditional elements like prayer and the beauty of the liturgy, but they choose churches where their actual lifestyle and daily realities are understood. We need to adapt our rigid parish schedules to match the chaotic reality of modern work weeks. We must create flexible, shorter, family-friendly liturgies, and stop treating ancient administrative rules like they are more important than welcoming a stressed-out parent.
• Third, we must offer authentic, shared leadership instead of passive maintenance.
  National studies show that the top spiritual reason young adults attend church is a desire for deep prayer, alongside an explicit wish to learn from mentors who have survived real-life struggles. They do not want to "wait their turn" in a hierarchy. We need to turn our parishes into active community spaces that tackle daily struggles head-on—offering practical marriage and family counseling, affordable after-school care, and parent peer-support groups. When young people see that the church is a place where they can directly lead service projects, ask raw questions, and find real-life support systems, they stay.

 

Let’s carry that lay delegate's question with us through the rest of this Synod. Let's stop talking in committee language, step out from behind the safety of the rectory doors, and start acting like a church that isn't afraid to labor in the vineyard.

Warmly,

Father Matt Kawiak

Consoling a Wounded World

                                    Little Tonawanda Steam by Fr. Matt
  

This Sunday, I am on my way to Manchester, New Hampshire, for our PNCC Synod. The official agenda ahead is heavy, focusing on the critical need to elect three new bishops and approve over thirty structural ordinances for our church. Yet, if I were to pull aside our wise, retired priests and ask them what the real, singular purpose of a holy gathering like this should be, I know exactly what they would say. They would tell me that beyond the laws, elections, and debates, the true mission of the church is simply to bring comfort to the people. Perhaps, looking back on their own long ministries, they might even share a quiet confession: that they were sometimes far too hard on their people.

 

“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” This beautiful echo from Isaiah reminds us that the main purpose of the church and our priests is to bring comfort to people; one of our major tasks is to console a wounded world. What people need first from us is help in lifting the weight of life's complexities, wounds, and anxieties.

 

This call to comfort grounds today’s Gospel, where Jesus asks a simple question: "What do you think?" He tells the story of two sons: one says no but changes his mind and goes to work, while the other says the right words but never shows up. When Jesus asks which one actually did the will of the father, the answer is obviously the first. This forces us to look at a phrase we don't ponder nearly enough: doing the will of the Father. When was the last time you actually paused in the middle of a frantic day to ask, "What is the will of God in this exact situation?" The Cross shows us that true life comes from pouring ourselves out for others.

 

I am thinking about a good friend Tim, a retired medical manager now serving as a home health aide to Ken. Tim has provided home care for over a year for Ken, who is now at Highland Hospital in comfort care. Ken can no longer speak, however when Tim walked into his hospital room, Ken gave him a big smile. Most likely Ken will be going home to heaven soon, but Tim shared that this man will not be alone. He promised to stay at his bedside reading his favorite book, Those Crazy Ass Catholics. This is what true life means pouring ourselves out for others.

 

I pray for all my Sonshine Friends, especially Ken and Tim, that we pause before we act, listen before we speak, and to genuinely ask, "God, what do you think I should be doing with my life?  Give us the courage of the first son to repent of our stubbornness, to lay down our own agendas, and to joyfully labor in your vineyard today. May our lives and our church structures become instruments of Your radical comfort, lifting the heavy burdens of those we meet and reflecting Your all-forgiving love to a wounded world.

 

 

Melt Our Keeping Score Hearts

                                Reviresco Autumn Fungi with Maple Leaf by Fr. Matt
  

Jesus hits us right where it hurts: our deep, human obsession with fairness. We read about a landowner paying the five o'clock latecomers the exact same wage as the early morning crowd, and something inside our chest tightens up. We immediately think, “Hey, that’s not right!” We are wired to believe that you only get what you earn. We want a God who keeps a strict scorecard, but instead, this parable confronts us with a divine generosity that completely ignores our human math.

 

This story isn't just an ancient fairy tale; I see it play out right on our modern street corners. In cities across the country, you can drive past crowds of migrants who need day work just to feed their kids. Yet, so many folks find that scene appalling. Our society shouts that these workers are breaking the rules. We hear people argue that they have no right to be here, no right to work, and certainly no right to healthcare or public education. When anyone suggests treating them with basic dignity, the cultural reflex is to push back. We want to protect what is "ours" from the people we think haven't earned it.

 

Our world tells us that success means climbing the ladder, protecting our territory, and making sure the "right" people get rewarded. But the radical message of the Cross shatters that worldview completely. God’s kingdom does not operate on a merit system. The Cross is the ultimate picture of unearned mercy given to the broken, the late, and the undeserving. While the world demands borders, quotas, and background checks before showing kindness, Christ offers overflowing grace to anyone who shows up—even at the very last hour.

 

We see this same ugly human friction right here in our own neighborhoods, workplaces, and families through our daily score-keeping:

 

The Thief’s Reward: The quiet discomfort we feel when we think about the penitent thief on the cross next to Jesus—a criminal who lived a life of crime, yet received paradise in his final breaths while others spent a lifetime trying to follow every rule.

The Workplace Grudge: The bitterness that bubbles up when a coworker who slacked off or joined the team at the last minute gets the exact same bonus or public praise as those who pulled all-nighters for months.

The Safety-Net Resentment: The frustration we feel when we see someone using government assistance or a local food pantry to buy nice groceries, immediately judging whether they are "needy enough" or if they are just gaming a system we pay into.

 

Why does it make you so angry when someone else receives a blessing that you feel they didn't work for? Are you secretly terrified that if God stopped grading on a curve, you might find yourself standing empty-handed at the end of the day too?

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends, melt our cold, keeping-score hearts. Give us the grace to celebrate your mercy wherever it falls, and help us work diligently in our own little corner of the vineyard so that everyone is cared for.

 

Where Nobody Has to Hide

                                                Holy Family Parish Picnic by Fr. Matt 

          

Think about the last time you had a true emergency out in the field. Maybe a combine caught fire right at the peak of harvest, or a heavy storm took half a roof off your barn. In a community like ours, you don't even have to make a phone call. Before you can even figure out your next step, you look down the gravel road and see dust kicking up. It’s your neighbors pulling into your driveway with their own tractors and tools, ready to help you get your crops out of the weather. We know exactly how to show up when the house is on fire, but today’s scriptures ask a much harder question. They ask how we handle the quiet, hidden, everyday struggles.

 

In the Gospel, a scholar asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” He was probably hoping Jesus would draw a comfortable fence line around the folks who already look, think, and live just like us. Instead, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan and tears down every boundary we try to build. He shows us that our neighbor isn't just the person who checks all our easy boxes. It’s the stranger, the outsider, and even the person we’d honestly rather avoid.

 

That challenge hits us right where we live during a tough season like this one. We are carrying some heavy, quiet burdens in agriculture right now. Between falling crop prices, skyrocketing input costs, and constant financial worries about things completely out of our control, the pressure can feel suffocating. You can work fourteen-hour days, do everything right, and still watch the math work against you.

 

In North Java and the surrounding towns where I had the privilege to serve as shepherd for twelve years, the people have a tradition of being tough and keeping their heads down, but that independence can become a dangerous wall. Too often, when the anxiety gets to be too much, a neighbor starts to pull back. They stop showing up at the morning coffee counter, their field goes untended, or their equipment just sits idle.

 

When we see a neighbor quietly drowning under financial strain or mental exhaustion, the temptation is to cross to the other side of the road and tell ourselves it’s none of our business. We avoid pulling into their driveway because sitting with someone else's pain makes us uncomfortable.

 

But the priest and the Levite in the story also had plenty of "good reasons" to pass by and stay in their comfort zones. The Samaritan was the only one who let his day be completely interrupted by someone else's brokenness.

 

Loving our neighbor means breaking that silence. We need to turn off the truck, pull into that neighbor’s driveway, and just check in on them. We have to find the courage to ask how they are really doing, sit on the tailgate, and just listen to the raw truth about the stress they're under. Together, we can remove the shame and make this our community where nobody has to hide their financial despair or mental exhaustion.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends. May our neighbors never feel alone in their dark days, and may we always be the ones who bring warmth and light to their struggles, just as a true neighbor should.

 

 

Finding "Sonshine" in the Darkness: A Priest's Journey Through 9/11 Trauma Support

Dear Sonshine Friends,

As we pause to look back on the tragic events of September 11, 2001, I wanted to share a personal reflection with you all. It is a memory that stays with me deeply, not as a point of pride, but as a reminder of how God calls us to serve in moments of absolute brokenness [

 

On the day of the attacks, I was called to serve with the JetBlue Care Team at JFK Airport in New York City. There, we did our best to care for the thousands of stranded, frightened passengers who were caught up in the immediate chaos of that tragedy.

 

Shortly after, JetBlue management asked me to return to New York City to oversee a much larger effort. I was deeply humbled by this request. Guided entirely by the wisdom and strength of the Holy Spirit, I accepted this invitation to serve. I was assigned to JetBlue Airways, where I served for three years as the Director of Mental Health Services.

 

During those difficult years, my mission was simply to be an instrument of peace for the airline's 4,000 crew members who were flying out into 12 cities across the country. The Holy Spirit gave me the strength to provide critical incident counseling and trauma support to:

• Airline pilots carry the immense weight of returning safely to the skies.
• Flight crew members processing deep anxiety and fear.
• Administrative staff working tirelessly behind the scenes.
•  

Looking back, I am simply grateful that God could use me to bring a small glint of His comfort and "sonshine" into such a dark chapter of our history.

 

Today, I invite you to join your hearts with mine as we lift up those who lost everything on that fateful day.

 

A Blessing Prayer for the Fallen and Their Families

Heavenly Father, God of all comfort and peace,

We come to You today with solemn and heavy hearts as we remember the devastating day our nation changed. We hold close in prayer the 2,753 precious souls who went to work or stepped onto planes that morning and lost their lives in and around the Twin Towers  We pray for their eternal rest, knowing that You have wrapped them safely in Your loving, eternal embrace

 

Lord, we also lift up the thousands of surviving family members, spouses, children, and friends who have had to carry the heavy weight of that sudden grief. For the parents who lost children, the children who grew up without parents, and everyone still missing a piece of their heart—pour out Your overwhelming grace Send them comfort when the memories hurt, strength when the days feel long, and a deep, healing peace that surpasses all human understanding

 

Thank You for guiding us through the dark times, and help us to always live with a spirit of kindness, courage, and unconditional love In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

With love and blessings,

Fr. Matt Kawiak

 

Where Nobody Has to Hide

Think about the last time you had a true emergency out in the field. Maybe a combine caught fire right at the peak of harvest, or a heavy storm took half a roof off your barn. In a community like ours, you don't even have to make a phone call. Before you can even figure out your next step, you look down the gravel road and see dust kicking up. It’s your neighbors pulling into your driveway with their own tractors and tools, ready to help you get your crops out of the weather. We know exactly how to show up when the house is on fire, but today’s scriptures ask a much harder question. They ask how we handle the quiet, hidden, everyday struggles.

 

In the Gospel, a scholar asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” He was probably hoping Jesus would draw a comfortable fence line around the folks who already look, think, and live just like us. Instead, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan and tears down every boundary we try to build. He shows us that our neighbor isn't just the person who checks all our easy boxes. It’s the stranger, the outsider, and even the person we’d honestly rather avoid.

 

That challenge hits us right where we live during a tough season like this one. We are carrying some heavy, quiet burdens in agriculture right now. Between falling crop prices, skyrocketing input costs, and constant financial worries about things completely out of our control, the pressure can feel suffocating. You can work fourteen-hour days, do everything right, and still watch the math work against you.

 

In North Java and the surrounding towns where I had the privilege to serve as shepherd for twelve years, the people have a tradition of being tough and keeping their heads down, but that independence can become a dangerous wall. Too often, when the anxiety gets to be too much, a neighbor starts to pull back. They stop showing up at the morning coffee counter, their field goes untended, or their equipment just sits idle.

 

When we see a neighbor quietly drowning under financial strain or mental exhaustion, the temptation is to cross to the other side of the road and tell ourselves it’s none of our business. We avoid pulling into their driveway because sitting with someone else's pain makes us uncomfortable.

 

But the priest and the Levite in the story also had plenty of "good reasons" to pass by and stay in their comfort zones. The Samaritan was the only one who let his day be completely interrupted by someone else's brokenness.

 

Loving our neighbor means breaking that silence. We need to turn off the truck, pull into that neighbor’s driveway, and just check in on them. We have to find the courage to ask how they are really doing, sit on the tailgate, and just listen to the raw truth about the stress they're under. Together, we can remove the shame and make this our community where nobody has to hide their financial despair or mental exhaustion.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends. May our neighbors never feel alone in their dark days, and may we always be the ones who bring warmth and light to their struggles, just as a true neighbor should.

 

 

 

The Good Samaritan

  

 

Fr, Matt invited to preach & concelebrate at Holy Family Annual Parish Picnic 

Think about the last time you had a true emergency out in the field. Maybe a combine caught fire right at the peak of harvest, or a heavy storm took half a roof off your barn. In a community like ours, you don't even have to make a phone call. Before you can even figure out your next step, you look down the gravel road and see dust kicking up. It’s your neighbors pulling into your driveway with their own tractors and tools, ready to help you get your crops out of the weather. We know exactly how to show up when the house is on fire, but today’s scriptures ask a much harder question. They ask how we handle the quiet, hidden, everyday struggles.

 

In the Gospel, a scholar asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” He was probably hoping Jesus would draw a comfortable fence line around the folks who already look, think, and live just like us. Instead, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan and tears down every boundary we try to build. He shows us that our neighbor isn't just the person who checks all our easy boxes. It’s the stranger, the outsider, and even the person we’d honestly rather avoid.

 

That challenge hits us right where we live during a tough season like this one. We are carrying some heavy, quiet burdens in agriculture right now. Between falling crop prices, skyrocketing input costs, and constant financial worries about things completely out of our control, the pressure can feel suffocating. You can work fourteen-hour days, do everything right, and still watch the math work against you.

 

In North Java and the surrounding towns where I had the privilege to serve as shepherd for twelve years, the people have a tradition of being tough and keeping their heads down, but that independence can become a dangerous wall. Too often, when the anxiety gets to be too much, a neighbor starts to pull back. They stop showing up at the morning coffee counter, their field goes untended, or their equipment just sits idle.

 

When we see a neighbor quietly drowning under financial strain or mental exhaustion, the temptation is to cross to the other side of the road and tell ourselves it’s none of our business. We avoid pulling into their driveway because sitting with someone else's pain makes us uncomfortable.

 

But the priest and the Levite in the story also had plenty of "good reasons" to pass by and stay in their comfort zones. The Samaritan was the only one who let his day be completely interrupted by someone else's brokenness.

 

Loving our neighbor means breaking that silence. We need to turn off the truck, pull into that neighbor’s driveway, and just check in on them. We have to find the courage to ask how they are really doing, sit on the tailgate, and just listen to the raw truth about the stress they're under. Together, we can remove the shame and make this our community where nobody has to hide their financial despair or mental exhaustion.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends. May our neighbors never feel alone in their dark days, and may we always be the ones who bring warmth and light to their struggles, just as a true neighbor should.

 

 

The Church an Emergency Room for Sinners

                                         

                           

National Weather Bureau shows Tornado 1/2 mile from Fr. Matt's home 
  

We like to think of our faith as a cozy blanket, but today’s Gospel drops a heavy truth bomb right in our laps. Jesus looks us in the eye and tells us exactly what to do when someone wrongs us. Let’s be honest: our knee-jerk human reaction is rarely what Christ commands. When we get hurt, our first instinct is to text a friend to gossip, stew in our bitterness, or sharpen our verbal knives for a devastating comeback. We want to win the argument, validate our anger, and watch the other person squirm. But Jesus calls us to a terrifyingly different path: a private, quiet conversation aimed not at winning a debate, but at winning back a brother or sister.

 

Look around at our world today, and you will see that we live in a textbook culture of public execution. We don't talk to people anymore; we talk about them on social media. We cancel them, expose them, and put their worst moments on full display for a stadium of strangers to judge. We have turned conflict into a spectator sport where mercy is seen as weakness and total annihilation of the enemy is the goal. We mistake this public tearing down for justice, completely blind to the reality that we are just fracturing our human family even further. We carry this same toxic habit into our daily lives, building silent walls of resentment while smiling to someone's face.

The world tells us that power means throwing the first punch, getting the last word, and demanding total vindication. We think protecting our dignity means humiliating the one who crossed us. But the Cross of Jesus Christ shatters that fragile worldly ego. On Calvary, Christ did not retaliate, call down legions of angels, or demand an apology before offering grace. He absorbed the hatred, took the bitterness into His own flesh, and returned nothing but pure, unadulterated graciousness. True spiritual strength is the radical willingness to hold pain without transmitting it back into the world, trading the cheap thrill of revenge for the costly, quiet work of reconciliation.

 

We see this difficult grace play out right in our own backyards. It looks like a wife sitting at a kitchen table, exhausted but fiercely resolute, choosing to care for her alcoholic husband not as a villain to be punished, but as a deeply sick soul who needs a hospital. It also looks like two adult brothers who haven’t spoken a word to each other in three years, finally letting go of a bitter grudge over who gets custody of their late father's restored 1967 Mustang.

 

Of course, doing things Jesus' way is a lot easier said than done, especially when green-eyed jealousy sneaks into the pews and poisons our relationships. We have to remember that the Church is not a pristine country club for spotless saints; it is a messy, chaotic emergency room for sinners. If you walk into a hospital, you can't be shocked when you run into sick people coughing on you. We are all spiritual patients here, occasionally stepping on each other's toes while we try to find the chapel.

 

• Is there someone in your life right now whose flaws you are happily discussing with others, yet you completely avoid addressing them directly?
• In your current conflicts, are you honestly seeking the restoration of a relationship, or are you just hunting for personal vindication and a public apology?

I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that the Lord give us the fierce courage to initiate honest dialogue and the deep humility to truly listen to those who hurt us. Soften our hardened hearts when we want to build walls, and give us the radical mercy required to loosen every heavy chain of resentment. Remind us always that Your welcome mat is permanently out at the door, and that we all belong in Your healing hospital. Amen.

 

Folks Just Don't Get It

 

                          Three Chimney Farm, Lexington, Kentucky by Fr Matt

We love to win, don't we? We want the trophy, the recognition, and the victory lap. So when Jesus strictly orders his disciples to keep his identity a total secret, it completely throws us off. Why hide the fact that he is the Messiah? The blunt truth is simple: they weren't ready to talk about it because they completely misunderstood his mission. Poor Peter didn't get it then, and if we are being honest, we often don’t get it today either.

 

Poor Peter and the religious crowds of the day had high hopes for Jesus. They were ready to put on their first-century versions of red baseball caps, eager to kick out those corrupt Romans and bring back the glory days of King David. We do the exact same thing today. We twist faith into nationalistic pride, wanting to enjoy our freedoms while looking down on our neighbors. We want a God who helps us beat our enemies and proves we are the exclusive, chosen group.

 

But Jesus flips our definitions of success upside down. If you walk into our church, you won’t see the image of a winning general on horseback or a guy who just won the lottery. Pride, victory, wealth, and public applause are not where we find God. Instead, we see a man dying on a cross. True love and the fullness of God only come to us when we put aside our human vanity, trade worldly power for personal sacrifice, and embrace radical humility.

 

What does this look like right here in our ordinary life? It is the everyday sacrifice of a parishioner sitting quietly in the back pew to listen deeply to a grieving neighbor, resisting the urge to offer easy, preachy answers. It looks like intentionally letting another volunteer take the credit for a beautifully organized church dinner without saying a word about your own heavy lifting. Down our country roads, it is the farming neighbor who quietly drives his tractor over to mend a downed fence line after a storm, loading up his tools and heading home before anyone can even offer a formal thanks.

 

These small, quiet deaths to our own ego are exactly how we carry our cross in daily life. It forces us to rethink what "success" actually means. Is it more money? A higher place in society? A Buffalo Bills Super Bowl parade? Hey, I am still hopeful! But the truth is, if you don't know God's inner peace without those things, you won't know his peace even if you get exactly what you want.

 

What earthly prizes or desires are we holding onto so tightly that they keep us from following Jesus' humble path? What specific pride do we need to let go of right now to truly experience God's peace?

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends. Wash away our need for worldly success, our cultural pride, and our constant desire for approval. Ground us deeply in the quiet power of your love shown on the cross. As we go out into the world, give us the courage to serve others rather than be served, to love without conditions, and to trust completely in your goodness. Amen.