Sermon for Sunday, October 25, 2026 || Proper 25A || Matthew 22:34-46
I preached a slightly longer version of this sermon in 2020, but I was in my seventh month of looking into a camera at the time. I have yearned to share this fairy tale with you face to face, and today’s the day.
Long ago in a faraway land, the wise old king lay dying. So the king called his sister, who was even wiser than he, and said to her, “Take my crown and remove the three jewels that adorn it. When my son fills those three settings with ornaments of his own, you shall crown him king.”
“But that’s not fair,” the young prince said, and he stomped his foot in protest. “I am king the moment after you draw your final breath.”
“Not so,” his father said. “I fear I have indulged your selfishness too long, my son. You would turn the whole world upside down just to believe yourself right side up. Therefore, I decree that your aunt will be regent until you present her with three tokens showing you have learned what it means to love with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
The king died that night, and the prince shed no tears because he was angry over the test his father had set. The prince brought item after item to his aunt, but she rejected each one with a wave of her hand. “You are like the bird at the end of the V who refuses to take a turn at the front,” she said. “Go away and do not return until you have flown into the wind.”
She sent the prince from the palace, and for the first time in his life, he had no one to bring him food or draw his bath or tend his horse. The prince turned up his collar against the rain and rode away from the palace and his aunt and his father’s test.
The rain continued to fall, and the road became a thin strip of swamp in the midst of farms and forests. By and by, the road dipped into a narrow ravine between two hills. Stuck in the mud at the bottom was a cart piled high with boxes and bags all tied together with ropes. An old man whose wide-brimmed hat drooped with the wet was coaxing a waterlogged donkey to pull, but the cart would not budge. The young prince dismounted and led his horse by the cart, intent on riding on.
But as he passed by, the man said, “I’ve been here for hours, and you are the only other traveler on the road in this weather. Please, will you help an old tinker get unstuck?”
The prince sneered at the tinker. “Why would I do that? What could you possibly give me in return for inconveniencing me?”
The tinker bowed his head. “A young lordling like yourself would find the items in my packs terribly simple. I’m afraid I have nothing to offer.”
The prince looked greedily at the bulging sacks atop the cart. Despite the tinker’s modesty, surely something in them would satisfy his aunt.
“On second thought, I will help you,” the prince said. “If you give me three perfect tokens from your stores.”
The tinker took off his hat and squeezed out the water. “A fair price,” he said.
The prince felt the bulges in the sacks as he passed them to the tinker and wondered what treasures might be contained therein. When the cart was unloaded, the prince hooked his fine steed in the traces alongside the bedraggled donkey. The two animals pulled at the tinker’s soft urging. But still the cart did not budge.
“I think we will need to push,” the tinker said.
“We?” the prince repeated. “I’m not getting in the mud. Don’t you see what finery I am wearing?”
“Clothes are clothes,” the tinker said, stepping into the thick mud.
The prince scowled at the tinker’s homespun wisdom. But when the tinker, the horse, and the donkey still could not move the empty cart, the prince squelched his way into the mire. The mud topped his riding boots and began oozing inside. He put his shoulder to the back of the cart. The young man and the old man pushed, and still the cart did not move.
“What we need is a pushing song,” the tinker said.
The prince shook his head, sending rainwater in every direction. “I stopped to help you. I lent you my horse. I got in the mud. But I draw the line at singing.”
“Suit yourself,” the tinker said. And with that he struck up a shanty with a good strong beat.
The rain will fall, the sun will set,
But I shall reach my ending yet.
And trav’lers I meet on the road
Will ride with me to share our load.
He added verse after verse, always coming back to this chorus. After the fourth or fifth verse, the young prince found himself singing along under his breath. And by the seventh verse, he was singing as loudly as the tinker. They sang together and pushed together and the horse pulled and the donkey pulled. And the cart moved.
The two men clambered out of the mud and hugged each other with glee. Then the prince remembered his station and withdrew. “Now, the three items you promised me,” he said. “What do you have in these packs?”
“Odds and ends mostly,” the tinker said. “Anything someone might need.”
By this time the rain had stopped, and the young prince began dumping the tinker’s packs out on the ground. He searched through each sack and box. He found flint and tinder, bits of thread, vials of tonic, mismatched utensils, chipped plates, tallow candles, rough clothing, wooden toys.
“It’s all worthless,” the prince bellowed. “I can’t bring any of this to my aunt.”
“Worthless to you, perhaps,” the tinker said. “But to the farmers and laborers I visit on the road, these things make a life.”
The prince held up a bent spoon and looked at his own distorted reflection in it. He stared back at himself, upside down in the bowl of the spoon. And for the first time in all his self-serving days, he came to himself, saying to his reflection, “Perhaps I am the one who is upside down.”
He held out the spoon to the tinker and said, “This is all I desire. Come, I will ride with you to your destination to make sure you don’t get stuck again.”
Presently they found a tavern and spent an evening in each other’s company. The next morning, the young prince bid the tinker farewell and rode back to the palace. His aunt smiled as she took in his muddy appearance. “What have you brought for your crown, little bird?” she asked.
The prince picked some dried mud from his boot. “Loving with all your heart means getting in the mud with someone to help them out.”
His aunt smiled wider.
The prince sang the tinker’s chorus. “Loving with all your soul means learning someone else’s song until it is yours together.”
His aunt clapped her hands.
The prince handed her the bent spoon. “Loving with all your mind means expanding your perspective by encountering the vastly different lives of other people.”
His aunt held out the jewel-less crown.
“You have flown at the head of V,” she said. “Remember what you have learned and you will be a just and loving king like your father.”
A tear ran down the prince’s cheek. “I was so angry with him when he died. How could I have been so upside down without realizing it? He tried to teach me, but I would not listen.”
The prince looked at the empty crown. “I won’t replace the gems. I have brought back invisible tokens for my father’s test: humility, solidarity, awareness. These settings are now full of love.”
Photo by Gennady Zakharin on Unsplash.
