Episcopal Parish of the Mediator/Redeemer McComb/Magnolia

06/21/2026

06/20/2026

Winner announced!

06/17/2026

Bible Study: Proper 6 (A) – June 14, 2026P
Kelsey Aebi
[RCL] Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7); Psalm 116:1,10-17; Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:8,(9-23)

Opening Prayer
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Context
Who is Jesus? Is Jesus a teacher, a healer, a miracle worker? Sometimes it is easy to become numb to the familiar details of scripture, including the figure of Jesus. This passage in Matthew is an opportunity to be reintroduced to Jesus.
To begin, it’s important to think about the structure of the gospels themselves. The gospels are made up of individual units of storytelling called pericopes. Biblical scholars have pointed to how different pericopes show Jesus as teacher, healer, exorcist, and miracle worker at foundational moments in his life and ministry.
The author of Matthew often focuses especially Jesus as a rabbi and teacher. Jesus’s teachings get a lot of attention in Matthew, like the three chapters devoted to the Sermon on the Mount, which helps establish Jesus’s teaching about the Kingdom of God. The Gospel of Matthew is also concerned with showing Jesus’s Jewish identity. Jesus teaches in synagogues and speaks with authority on the Torah, answering questions from—and engaging in dialogue with—religious leaders.
The passage ends with anticipation of the coming of the Son of Man, a messianic title from the apocalyptic book of Daniel. In chapter 9 of that book, Daniel has a dream of an angelic or divine being who is given authority and sits on God’s throne as regent and judge. The Book of Enoch, a popular apocalyptic text circulating in the Second Temple Period, identifies the Son of Man as the Messiah. For readers of those biblical texts, the title would have conjured images of a divine messianic figure, coming to reign over the Kingdom of God.
Theological Reflection
The first section of this passage (9:35-10:8) introduces Jesus as a disruptive force, moving from town to town and bringing change everywhere he goes. Where he encounters sickness, he brings healing. Where he encounters troubled or lost hearts, he offers compassion. Jesus announces the good news of the kingdom, but wherever he goes, the kingdom is already beginning to manifest all around him. This is how the kingdom spreads: wherever God’s presence is, the world cannot help but be changed.
In verse 37 Jesus invites the disciples into this work: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” His is a vision of abundance: There will be enough for everyone, if only people are willing to pitch in. The disciples (called in 10:1-2) will be drawn into Jesus’s ministry of holy disruption. In these verses, he gives them direct authority to do as he does: to cast out unclean spirits, to heal and cure diseases. In this way, the kingdom will spread from town to town, and city to city, as they bring God’s healing power to those they meet.
We see in these verses that Jesus sends the disciples out first to the people of Israel, but after his death and resurrection he will send them out to all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). And what does Jesus tell them to say? “The kingdom of heaven has come near” (10:7). This pronouncement is often understood in chronological terms as in something that will happen soon, but it can be understood in spatial terms too. The kingdom of heaven is very close. It’s as close as the next town over, where a man was healed. It’s a close as this town, where someone’s child was raised from the dead. It’s as close as the person coming to you in the name of Christ, offering compassion, like Jesus did.
In the second section of today’s lesson (10:8-15), Jesus begins teaching the disciples about the economy of God’s kingdom. In verse 8 Jesus says, “You received without having to pay.” In unhealthy economic systems, some only give and some only receive reward or payment, but the economy of God’s Kingdom is an ecosystem of interdependence. The disciples have had deep transformational encounters with Christ that led them to this point. They are not now serving to pay back what they have received—it is not transactional. Jesus is not counting up their part of some total. Rather, they are becoming part of a new community of believers, those give and receive as they have need.
In 10:9, Jesus instructs that their needs should be met, but not for profit. This vision of service is not about working until your mental, physical and emotional resources are demolished or ignoring your own needs. It is about relying on the network of hospitality and the care of others in the kingdom: strangers, friends, and fellow believers. However idealistic this sounds, Jesus doesn’t offer a naive view of reality. In verse 11 he acknowledges that not everyone will choose to participate in the economy of the kingdom. Yet it is not the disciples job to judge or punish them. Rather he tells calls them to shake the dust off their feet and leave it in God’s hands.
In the final section (10:16-23), Jesus further develops his portrait of the challenges the disciples will face in the world. Verse 16 explains that they will need to bring all their resources to bear on this calling: “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” The challenges the world creates require skill and nuance to navigate, but even that won’t always be enough. Verses 19-20 suggest that when the disciples are put under pressure, they aren’t meant to have the perfect answers or know exactly what to do. They simply have to remember that God is with them and will not leave them. The passage closes with a reminder that the Son of Man, the Messiah, will soon follow. No matter the challenges they face, the kingdom of heaven is very near.
Discussion Questions
• Where have you experienced the disruptive power of the kingdom of God in your life?
• How do you perceive and participate in the economy of the God’s kingdom?
• What message do you hear for your life today in Jesus’s teaching to his disciples about facing, faithfully, the challenges the world poses?
Faith in Practice
Think about the community you live in and the ways your life is woven in with the lives of your neighbors. Who do you rely on and who relies on you? Reach out to your networks of community and offer support, fellowship, or care to someone this week. Schedule a time for giving or receiving hospitality. Take a friend to coffee or accept an invitation to dinner with a new acquaintance. Write a letter or invite a faraway friend to join you for a time of connection. Ask the Lord to send you out as a laborer into the harvest.
Kelsey Aebi is a Candidate for Holy Orders in the Diocese of East Tennessee, and an M.Div. student at the School of Theology in Sewanee, TN. As a seminarian, Kelsey especially enjoys the study of the Hebrew Bible, and serving as a Sacristan in the Chapel of the Apostles. In her free time, she enjoys reading fantasy and science fiction, praying the rosary, and traveling with her spouse.

06/14/2026

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
COLLECT and SCRIPTURES
The Collect
Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Old Testament
Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)
The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.
They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. He said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”
[The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” And she said, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”]

Psalm 116:1, 10-17
1 I love the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplication, *
because he has inclined his ear to me whenever I called upon him.
10 How shall I repay the Lord *
for all the good things he has done for me?
11 I will lift up the cup of salvation *
and call upon the Name of the Lord.
12 I will fulfill my vows to the Lord *
in the presence of all his people.
13 Precious in the sight of the Lord *
is the death of his servants.
14 O Lord, I am your servant; *
I am your servant and the child of your handmaid;
you have freed me from my bonds.
15 I will offer you the sacrifice of thanksgiving *
and call upon the Name of the Lord.
16 I will fulfill my vows to the Lord *
in the presence of all his people,
17 In the courts of the Lord's house, *
in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.
Hallelujah!

The Gospel
Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)
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. [Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of S***m and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”]

06/12/2026

06/09/2026

Bible Study: Proper 5 (A) – June 7, 2026
Brandon Medley
[RCL] Genesis 12:1-9; Psalm 33:1-12; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Opening Prayer |
O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Context |
The Gospel of Matthew was written by a Jewish author to a primarily Jewish audience, likely between 80-85 CE. This community—and this author—still identified as Jewish, and so this gospel portrays Christ as the long-awaited Messiah, sent by God to fulfill the Jewish scriptures. This emphasis is seen in the large amount of Old Testament scripture quoted in the gospel—more than the other canonical gospels—to prove that Jesus is the promised Messiah. The gospel traces Jesus’ genealogy through the great Jewish king David back to Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith (Matt 1:1). The Gospel of Matthew portrays Jesus as the “new Moses,” drawing parallels between Jesus, who is sent to deliver humanity from sin (Matt 1:21), and Moses, who led the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt. Matthew’s gospel depicts Jesus as observant of Jewish law, while frequently at odds with the Pharisaic leaders over its interpretation.
Most scholars agree that the writer of Matthew uses Mark’s gospel as a source, but elaborates upon it extensively. This gospel places a heavy emphasis on Jesus as a teacher, with five large sections devoted to Jesus’s teachings, thereby mirroring the five books of the Pentateuch, the Old Testament books traditionally ascribed to Moses. The most famous of these sections is the Sermon on the Mount, which takes up four whole chapters (Matt 5-8) preceding the section where today’s reading is found. While Mark’s gospel depicts Jesus performing many miracles, Matthew’s gospel condenses those mostly to two chapters and uses them to illustrate the nature of discipleship. The ten miracles told across these two chapters recall the ten miracles of Moses in Egypt, another example of the parallels drawn in this gospel between Jesus and Moses (see Exod 7:14-10:29; 12:29-32). Today’s reading comes in the second of these miracle chapters of Matthew.
Theological Reflection|
To make sense of today’s gospel reading, we don’t have to look further than the common experience playing out in most high school cafeterias, where students often group themselves at tables by cliques: the band kids at one table, the athletes at another, and so on. It’s rare to see different groups of students mingling together. Teenagers know that to eat with someone means to say “these are my people,” and to sit with people outside one’s “group” would be to upset the social order.
A similar understanding of eating with others existed in Jesus’s day, and the first part of today’s reading shows some Pharisees upset about who Jesus is eating with for similar reasons: because eating together claims kinship and community. The trouble begins in verse nine, when Jesus calls Matthew as his disciple while Matthew is “sitting at a tax booth.” (Tradition long held that this Matthew was the same as the author of this gospel, but modern scholarship cannot confirm this association.) Tax collectors were widely despised because they had a reputation of exploiting people, collecting more than was due to pad their own pockets. Jesus still says to Matthew, “follow me,” and Matthew “got up and followed him” (v. 9).
Matthew is not the only tax collector with whom Jesus associates. In fact, he then goes to dinner (possibly at Matthew’s house; the text is unclear) with “many tax collectors and sinners” (v. 10). These people were social and moral outcasts. The social custom that held eating with someone as a way to bring them into one’s circle worked in both directions. If an accepted member of society in good standing dined with someone from beyond the accepted circles, their own reputation would be challenged by association. Eating with the despised group of tax collectors served as a mark against Jesus’s honor and reputation—which is why some Pharisees challenge his disciples, questioning Jesus’s actions (v. 11). The Pharisees upheld strict religious and social boundaries, and tax collectors dwelt outside those boundaries.
Jesus answers their concern with a proverb that emphasizes his mission, contrasting the outcasts who recognize their need for grace with the self-righteousness of these religious leaders (v. 12). In verse 13, Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6, a reminder that God’s nature is to be merciful and to offer grace, telling the Pharisees to “go and learn what this means.”
The lectionary then skips to verses 18-26 where we get two intertwined healing stories. Both healings happen to people who would have been considered outsiders in different ways. First, “a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him” pleading for his dead daughter (v. 19). While the previous scene shows religious leaders being suspicious and critical of Jesus, this leader recognizes Jesus’s authority and power, and Jesus grants the man’s request to resurrect his daughter, a foreshadowing of the resurrection Jesus makes possible for all. The opposition of the Pharisees in the earlier scene is contrasted with the faith of this leader. Despite his position, he follows Jesus, becoming part of his movement.
In the middle of this story, another healing takes place. “A woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years” approaches Jesus as he is following the religious leader to his home (v. 20). Her health issue would have meant that she was considered unclean according to Jewish law, leaving her cut off from most of society (Lev 15:25-27). Even without that issue, by societal norms it would have been considered inappropriate for a woman to approach a man as she does. And yet Jesus breaks with convention in his response to her. She touches Jesus’s cloak, and he commends her, saying, “take heart…your faith has made you well” (v. 22).
One small note on the text, which might be inviting (literally). The Greek word translated as “called” in verse nine, when Matthew is “called,” can also be translated as “invited.” The theme of invitation runs through today’s stories. In each of the scenes, Jesus invites outsiders—tax collectors, sinners, religious leaders from opposing groups, and a woman who was considered unclean—to become insiders. He invites them into relationship and community.
Jesus doesn’t just invite people to follow him; he also follows them in turn. He follows Matthew to dinner. He follows the religious leader to his daughter’s bedside. And he follows the woman’s lead as she approaches him for healing.
This important dynamic shows that a relationship with Jesus is like a relationship with a friend: one of mutuality. Jesus meets the people where they are in life and follows them to the place of their need. Humans, like teenagers in a high school cafeteria, have a tendency to exclude outsiders and those who are different. The scenes in today’s reading remind us that Jesus invites all of us to become part of his community.
For Reflection |
• When or where in your life have you sensed Jesus saying, “follow me”?
• Have you ever had a moment where you felt more like the Pharisees in this story, confounded and concerned by the communities Jesus creates?
• When have you been an outsider who experienced the grace of being invited into community?
• Where or when has Jesus followed you in your life?
Faith in Practice |
Following Jesus’s example, interact with someone you wouldn’t regularly engage. Offer an act of hospitality to someone in need, sit with someone new at coffee hour, or make small talk with a stranger in the grocery line. Think of it as a practice of the Baptismal Covenant: to seek and serve Christ in all persons. How does Christ invite you in that moment, and how does he follow you as you enter?
Brandon Medley is a candidate for the priesthood in the Diocese of Georgia. He is a senior in the hybrid M.Div. program at The General Theological Seminary and currently serves at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Valdosta, Georgia. He works as an elementary school behavior interventionist. Brandon enjoys sharing life with his wife, Elizabeth, and their two dogs, Fred and Betty. He enjoys hiking, birding, and Star Wars.

06/07/2026

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

The Collect
O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Old Testament
Genesis 12:1-9
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.

The Psalm
Psalm 33:1-12
1 Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous; *
it is good for the just to sing praises.
2 Praise the Lord with the harp; *
play to him upon the psaltery and lyre.
3 Sing for him a new song; *
sound a fanfare with all your skill upon the trumpet.
4 For the word of the Lord is right, *
and all his works are sure.
5 He loves righteousness and justice; *
the loving-kindness of the Lord fills the whole earth.
6 By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, *
by the breath of his mouth all the heavenly hosts.
7 He gathers up the waters of the ocean as in a water-skin *
and stores up the depths of the sea.
8 Let all the earth fear the Lord; *
let all who dwell in the world stand in awe of him.
9 For he spoke, and it came to pass; *
he commanded, and it stood fast.
10 The Lord brings the will of the nations to naught; *
he thwarts the designs of the peoples.
11 But the Lord's will stands fast for ever, *
and the designs of his heart from age to age.
12 Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord! *
happy the people he has chosen to be his own!

The Epistle
Romans 4:13-25
The promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.
For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

The Gospel
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.”
And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the report of this spread throughout that district.

06/03/2026

Thank you Lisa F and Virginia G for sharing your photos of Sunday’s Parish picnic. Our thanks to the Leggett’s and Goza’s for hosting at such a lovely setting!