A Carefully Constructed World

Dear Sutton and Savannah, 

Watching you leave home for kindergarten, for college, for new jobs, for solo trips, and for marriage, has always been hard. Those moments were always reminders of your independence, your sovereignty, your courage, your resilience and my lack of control. I hope, on the whole, I have exhibited more trust than panic, and more encouragement than fear. You have always been the architect of your own journey. I have just been given the great opportunity to tag along and watch. I hope you keep exploring.

-Dad

Inside Out Lectionary Letters

Year A Proper 22 - (Texts, Art, Hymns)

Readings for Sunday, October 4, 2026

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 / Psalm 19 / Philippians 3:4b-14 / Matthew 21:33-46

Summary of Matthew 14:22-33

The parable contained in this passage is typically viewed as a story about how the religious leaders have ceased seeing their role as being that of a steward entrusted with the religious well-being of the people. Instead they are obsessed with their own self-preservation.

Scripture as Mirror of the Soul

There is something frighteningly familiar about the tenants in Jesus’ parable. They were entrusted with a vineyard, but somewhere along the way they began acting as though it belonged to them. Perhaps the ego can do something similar. We need an ego. It gives structure to our lives, helps us function, establishes boundaries, and creates some stability in navigating a complicated inner and outer world. But the ego makes a terrible owner. When it forgets that it is a steward serving the health of the whole self, preserving its structures can become more important than producing good fruit. In this defensive posture, anything that threatens the system must then be resisted, silenced, or pushed away.

I wonder how often that happens inside me. A new idea challenges something I have always believed. An uncomfortable emotion surfaces. Someone points out something about me that I don’t want to see. One part of me immediately begins building a defense: That can’t be right. Another part becomes curious: Tell me more. The chief priests and Pharisees hear Jesus, are defensive and want to arrest him; the crowds hear him and want to keep listening. Both responses live inside me. The question is not whether I have an ego that protects the world I have constructed. Of course I do. The question is whether I can become secure enough to listen when something from beyond that carefully constructed world asks to be heard.

Jesus then introduces a remarkable image: the stone rejected by the builders becomes the cornerstone. Perhaps some of the very things I have rejected within myself—my vulnerability, uncertainty, grief, need, tenderness, even my capacity to admit that I have been wrong—contain something essential for becoming whole. The emerging self does not need to destroy the ego; it can redeem it, returning it to its proper role as steward rather than owner. And perhaps love becomes the cornerstone upon which that inner house can finally be rebuilt. Love creates enough room for the rejected parts to come home. As the inner architecture changes, so can the way I encounter the world outside myself. What I once needed to defend, control, or defeat I may finally become free enough to understand—and perhaps even to love.

Psalm 19 - Scripture as Prayers of the Soul

The heavens above and the landscape within abound with the creative passion of the eternal God. Day after day, night after night, creation speaks. Everywhere I turn I can see its beauty, feel its rhythm, and sense its invitation.

Its voice is not bound by language, hindered by rules, or silenced by darkness. It reverberates through the inner walls I have built, the defenses I have fortified, the regrets I rehearse, and the fears I nurse. Yet Your love, O God, is as consistent as the sunrise, as hopeful as a wedding march, and as determined as the sun making its way across the sky. Your love takes in ALL of me.

So let Your light fall upon every hidden part of my thoughts, pain, and personality. May the rule-keeping part of me delight in the law of love rather than the prison of perfection. May I discover the wisdom of grace and let go of the folly of self-condemnation. Help me find a joy inwardly that can radiate outwardly.

Transform my fear of the shadows within me and the shame of my inner secrets into confidence in Your power to redeem and restore. Your grace is sweeter than honey and more precious than gold. Let the path of restoration lead me more deeply into the experience of being loved, feeling loved, and becoming free to love.

Lord, I could never discern all my hidden faults, comprehend all my brokenness, or even begin to list all the errors of my ways. And, I don’t need to. Turn my heart instead toward Your loving presence within me. My past isn’t erased, but it need not determine my future.

And then, as the inner skies begin to clear and the inner landscape begins to flourish, may the words of my mouth and the movements of my heart reflect the love I am learning to receive. May love become more than something I believe. May it become something I embody.

O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.