A sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 11
July 19, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR
Readings: Isaiah 44:6-8; Psalm 86:11-17; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30,36-43
I stood at the edge of my backyard garden in Stuttgart. It was a good sized garden. I had tilled it up by hand, carefully planted everything, watered, babied it. Stuttgart had that good, fertile soil, the kind where if you planted erasers you could grow pencils. The plants had come up nicely–flowers, tomatoes, okra, peppers, squash. I had tried to prepare for weeds, but not well enough. It was about this time of year. It was hot. We had just had one of those weeks with heavy rain–and maybe it had been a little while since I’d had time to get out there. The result: the weeds were taller than all my plants. I was too tired and it was too hot to mess with it. I dropped all my garden tools and got out the weedeater. That evening, as I bought my vegetables at Walmart, I told myself, “God is good, all the time; all the time, God is good.”
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Storied Grace 