This Sunday’s readings speak of prophets and promises – but a promise is one thing, and a track record is another. Are we willing to bet on Jesus’s track record?

June 28, 2026: Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
2 Kings 4:8–11, 14–16a
Psalm 89:2–3, 16–19
Romans 6:3–4, 8–11
Matthew 10:37–42

Of Prophets and Promises

‍This Sunday’s readings speak of prophets and promises. Jesus invites us to welcome God’s prophets, and promises a life-giving reward. But a promise is one thing, and a track record is another.

In the first reading, the prophet Elisha promises a generous woman from the village of Shunem, “This time next year, you will have a baby.” In the second reading, the apostle Paul promises that if we die to ourselves like Christ Jesus, we will share in a resurrection way of life. (“Resurrection” = ana-stasis “laid low and raised up again; re-established; de-constructed and re-constructed in the way that it was originally meant to be”). And finally, in this week’s Gospel, Jesus promises that those who welcome his message and follow his example will be rewarded with the fullness of life.

In the face of such extravagant promises, I feel a bit like the Shunamite woman: “Prophet of God, I am trying to be a faithful servant. Please don’t lie to me; don’t pull my leg.” The promises are inspiring, but the proof is in the track record. Is it possible for these promises to come true?

We never learn the name of Elisha's benefactor, but the story provides us with some telling details about this woman, her status, and her style. She is a woman of means and influence in her town of Shunem, which is located in southern Galilee. She has a husband, but she makes the decisions about capital expenses – what to build, how to furnish, whom to support. When Elisha asks, “What favor can I do to repay you?” she answers, “Nothing, really; I’m a pillar in my community.” Nevertheless, Elisha promises her the seemingly impossible: “I hear there are no kids in your family; next year you will have your own child.”

Later in the story, a child does indeed come. But then the unthinkable happens (2 Kings 4:17–37). While working the harvest with his father, the boy has an aneurism; the servants bring him home, and he dies in his mother’s lap. Now we learn even more about this powerful woman: she saddles a donkey and rides non-stop to seek out Elisha. “Did I ask for a son?” she demands. “And now look what has happened. Did I not beg of you, ‘Do not deceive me’?” Elisha sends his apprentice to heal the boy, but the Shumanite woman is adamant: “No! I swear by YHWH and by your own life, I will not let go of you unless you yourself come, and make this thing right!”

Elisha does go, and by praying to YHWH he raises the child from death. This is only one of Elisha’s miracles in the vicinity of Galilee: feeding multitudes with plenty left over; multiplying oil so that a widow can pay her debts and save her children from slavery; walking dry-shod across water. It’s no wonder that the Gospels compare Elisha and his forerunner Elijah to Jesus and his forerunner John the Baptist. YHWH has a track record in the legends of Galilee.

Paul’s promises are no less extravagant, and the track record he points to could not be more immediate: new communities of surprising equality where spiritual gifts fall on the great and lowly alike. In a first-century Roman context where almost one in five people were owned by other people – “human resources“ to be worked, raped, and discarded in alignment with market rates – Paul’s mutual-support churches were not just counter-cultural. They were counter-economic and counter-political. They were a practice of social insurrection. “Do you want proof of a re-constructed reality?” Paul argues. “Look around and live up to the promise which has already begun to come true in your midst.”

Finally, there is the track record of Jesus, one like “the prophets of old” (Lk 9:19). The stories of Jesus’s miracles have many layers of meaning. They convey a deep spiritual message by showing that the presence of Jesus is the presence of God. When two or three gather in the Spirit and name of Jesus, “Emmanuel, God is with us,” transforming the natural and the spiritual world (Mt 1:23).

Jesus’s miracles also convey a deep social, practical, and political message. In the first-century Galilean context, peasant farmers and fishermen were taxed almost literally to death: taxes to Rome; taxes to the local monarch Herod Antipas; even taxes to support the Temple-state economy of Jerusalem in a whole different country (Judea). Hunger, malnutrition and disease were endemic. Day-laborers on plantations and on royal fishing conglomerates were one illness and often one (day’s) paycheck away from begging in the street. Farmers were one bad harvest away from borrowing grain at exorbitant interest – which leads inevitably to losing your farm, falling into day-labor, or selling yourself and your kids into slavery. In this kind of Roman-Galilean (dis)order, “The poor you will always have with you,” as Jesus observed (Mt 26:11).

But Jesus promises, and the Gospels claim that he delivers. He performs healthcare-for-all miracles (“he healed all who were ill,” Mt 12:15). He performs freedom miracles (casting out the “Legion” from occupied lands, Mk 5:9). He calms adverse climate events (Mt 8:23-27, 14:32). Most of all, he performs affordability miracles: he provides huge catches of seafood (Lk 5:4-7); he multiplies loaves and fish to feed hungry crowds (Mt 14:13-21 and 15:29-38); he even gives himself to be food and drink to the world (Mt 26:26-28). And he says that his followers will do even more wonderful things (Jn 14:12).

In the US, democratic institutions are buckling under the strain of big money and unregulated social media. Almost 1 in 10 people have no health insurance. More than one in 10 people depend on food assistance, and 90% of us eat unhealthy diets. Across the planet, more than nine in 10 people live in undemocratic nations. Three in 10 people experience food insecurity, and 20% suffer obesity.

Jesus says: “We are all in this together. There’s enough for everyone if we share.” And Jesus promises: “God brings freedom. God brings health. God is food. It has happened before. It can happen again.”

So promises are one thing, and track records are another.

Am I willing to bet on the track record behind this week’s readings? Am I willing to act as Jesus’ “prophet” – at the dinner table? To my friends? In my politics?

Or do I think he’s just pulling my leg?

John P. Falcone is a practical theologian religious educator and a practitioner of Theatre of the Oppressed (PhD Boston College). He has been a Dignity member for more than 20 years with close links to Dignity NY where he met his husband Matias Wibowo in 2005. He is currently the Ford Visiting Professor of Practical Theology at San Francisco Theological Seminary.