Bending Crooked Paths Straight - Ed Carrette's Homily for the Third Sunday After Pentecost - May 14, 2026

Summary

Community Missioner Ed Carrette challenges the common notion that blessing equals good fortune or material comfort, offering instead a richer, gospel-rooted understanding: blessing is God's faithful presence with us, in both the good times and the hard ones. Drawing on Genesis, Matthew, and the lived experience of Grace's ministries, Ed invites the congregation to see God showing up not in the absence of struggle, but right in the middle of it. We are blessed, he reminds us, not because life is easy, but because God refuses to leave us.

The Gospel

Matthew 9:35-10:8

Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. 

Artwork:  Disciples at the Harvest, Gustave Doré (1832-1883) 

Transcript

Ed Carrette, Community Missioner:

Let us pray. Gracious and loving God whose compassion knows no bounds and whose mercy never fails. Quiet our hearts and open our minds to hear your word this day. When we are tempted to measure blessing by success, abundance or comfort, remind us that your greatest gift is your presence among us. When we are weary from the burdens of life, help us to know you walk beside us. When we encounter those who are struggling, grant us eyes to see them as Jesus saw the crowds with compassion, dignity and love. Poor your Holy Spirit upon us now that the words we hear may take root in our hearts, strengthen our faith and inspire us to become faithful laborers in your harvest, helping to make crooked paths straight and bearing witness to your kingdom. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

Amen.

This morning's readings invite us to think about the nature of blessing, what it means to bless and to be blessed. Now, the word blessing is tricky. We often use it as a stand-in for good luck or material goods. We talk about being blessed with a parking spot when we need one or being blessed by finding exactly the thing we need at the first store we visit. Blessing becomes not just to stand in for good luck, but in a way we experience that we have found favor with God. We speak of being blessed with a good health result or blessed with getting a pay raise, but such a perspective is complicated because if those are blessings, then the opposite must be true too.

If when our bodies are healthy, God is blessing us, then when our bodies are battling sickness, God must supposedly be punishing us. And if when we have an abundance of money, God is blessing us. Then when we are going through leaner times, Go must be withdrawing favor from us. At grace, we've learned something different about blessing. Every Thursday morning we welcome hundreds of families to our food distribution. Some are working two jobs. Some are raising grandchildren. Some are caring for aging parents. Some are facing medical crises. They do not look like the carefully curated lives we see online. They look like real people carrying real burdens.

And yet, week after week, I see blessing in that parking lot. Not because every problem is solved and not because every family suddenly has financial security, but because God shows up in volunteers, unloading trucks in the Texas heat in neighbors helping neighbors load groceries in a smile, a prayer, a word of encouragement, and in the reminder that no one has to carry life's burdens alone. In our reading from Genesis, we see God fulfilling the promise God made to Abraham by giving Sarah and Abraham a child, even at their very old age. Does that mean that any couple who has struggled to conceive is out of favor with God?

The story is often read simply, God provides a solution. Sarah conceives and bears a son. But many of us know that life is rarely so simple. Most of us know what it means to wait for God. We have prayed for healing. We have sat beside hospital beds. We have lifted up loved ones battling cancer, recovering from strokes, struggling with addiction or facing uncertain futures. We have watched members of this congregation walk through grief and hardship that seemed unbearable. The blessing is not that every prayer receives the answer we hoped for. The blessing is that God never abandons us in the waiting.

God is not a wish granting factory. The complicated nature of God and God's way of giving is revealed in our gospel. After telling the apostles there will be a lot of work to do, Jesus tells them, "You received without payment, give without payment." That verse could almost be the mission statement of this church. Every Thursday, thousands of pounds leave this campus. Every Friday, our shower ministry welcomes neighbors experiencing homelessness. Every week, volunteers deliver groceries to homebound seniors who can no longer easily shop for themselves. At Memorial Gardens, residents gather for fellowship, prayer, and access to food through our mini pantry.

One of the things Mother Suzanne and I repeatedly heard this past week at the bread for the world advocacy in Washington DC was that faith is not simply about caring for people after they fall into hardship. It is also about helping bend crooked paths straight. That phrase stayed with me because every week at grace we meet people walking some very crooked paths. Families navigating food insecurity, seniors choosing between groceries and medication, parents trying to stretch a paycheck one more week. Neighbors struggling with housing, health concerns or loneliness. When we distribute food, deliver groceries to homebound seniors, help someone with a SNAP application or connect a family with resources through cares and action. We are certainly meeting immediate needs, but we are also participating in something larger. We are joining God's work of making the path a little straighter for someone who has encountered obstacle after obstacle.

That is what Christian compassion looks like. Not simply charity, not simply generosity, but partnering with God in the restoration of human dignity and human flourishing. The remarkable thing is that Jesus entrusts this work to ordinary people like us. Anyone who spends time in our ministries knows the answer. We meet seniors who worked hard their entire lives and struggle to afford food or medicine. We meet families who must choose between paying rent and buying groceries. We meet people whose lives were changed in an instant by illness, injury, or circumstances beyond their control. Their hardships are not evidence of God's disfavor. Sometimes life is simply hard and that is exactly why the compassion of Christ matters so much. In today's gospel, Matthew tells us that Jesus looked out at the crowds. He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus did not look at suffering people and asked whether they deserved their circumstances. He saw their need and responded with compassion. That is the heart of the gospel. The disciples introduces an entirely different economy. Jesus is talking about gifts. He teaches about receiving God's love and God's presence as a gift. Not because we earned it, not because we deserve it, but because God is good. This brings us back to the idea of blessing. So blessing isn't about having our prayers answered the way we hope. It's not about receiving something wonderful. Blessing is about God's goodness, God's faithfulness in our lives.

God's blessing is God's presence with us and that presence is here when we get our way and when all the chips are down. Go blesses us right where we are on great days and on garbage days because God is with us always. And I've seen that blessing. I've seen it in our parking lot on Thursday mornings. I've seen it while volunteers sort and pack food. I've seen it in the common area at Memorial Gardens when seniors gather around the mini pantry. I've seen it on Friday mornings when a hot breakfast, a warm shower and clean clothes remind a woman that she really is a human being and that she still matters. I've seen it in hospital rooms where families gather around a loved on and pray.

I've seen it in the quiet faithfulness of volunteers who show up week after week, month after month, year after year, simply because Christ called them to serve. None of those moments make the world's problems disappear, but in each of those moments, God's presence becomes visible. Perhaps the blessing Abraham and Sarah received was not merely Isaac himself, but the discovery that God had been walking beside them every year of waiting. We are blessed by that same presence, a gift we received before we even knew how to ask for it. God is with us when we struggle and when we succeed. God is with us as we pray in frustration and as we lift our voices and praise.

We are not alone no matter what lies ahead. Perhaps that is the miracle of blessing. Not that God removes every struggle, not that God grants every request exactly as we desire. The miracle is that God refuses to leave us. God was with Abraham and Sarah for decades of waiting. God was with Paul through suffering. God was with the disciples as they were sent into a broken world and God is still sending disciples today, not only into distant mission fields, but into food pantries, senior housing communities, advocacy meetings, homeless ministries, schools, hospitals, and neighborhoods. Wherever God's people help bend a crooked path a little straighter for someone else, the kingdom of heaven draws near.

And God is with us still in our homes, in our hospital rooms, in our moments of joy and sorrow and even in a church parking lot filled with volunteers and families receiving food. We are blessed not because life is easy. We are blessed because God is here. So this morning, wherever you find yourself, whether you come carrying joy or sorrow, confidence or uncertainty, gratitude or grief, may you know that you are blessed. May you come into the realization that God is here with you right now, no matter what. May y

ou receive the gift of God's immense grace and unchanging love. And may the eyes of your heart be opened to see that God is blessing and blessing and blessing us. Amen.