This is The Slow Apprenticeship — a four-week series for the Sundays of July, recorded with our parish in Hamilton.

Over these four weeks we sit with the kingdom parables of Matthew 13, paired with the unfolding story of Jacob in Genesis. We're listening for what it means to apprentice to Jesus over a lifetime — slowly, patiently, in a culture that has lost the patience for slow things.

Our anchor for the series is a sentence from the French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: "Above all, trust in the slow work of God." That trust is what we're learning to walk in.

The kingdom begins not with performance but with a quiet yes to Jesus. We open the series in Matthew 11, where Jesus offers the most counter-cultural invitation of his ministry: come and learn from me. Three Greek words — yoke, easy, rest — unpack what apprenticeship to Jesus actually looks like, when we're done trying to impress him.

The series lands here: Peter’s confession comes before his commission. Isaiah says remember the rock you were hewn from; Paul says offer yourselves in view of mercy already received. Identity precedes activity — so mature disciples work from rest, not for approval. The final week of Rest and Identity in Christ, from St Francis, Hillcrest.

Rest isn’t for hoarding — it’s for hospitality. This week Isaiah ties sabbath to welcoming the outsider, Paul declares mercy wide enough for everyone, and a Canaanite mother discovers the table is bigger than the disciples thought. What God gives us in rest, he means to flow through us. Week three, from St Francis.