🐮 Proper 9

Readings: Isaiah 66:10-14; Psalm 66:1-9; Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Reflection

Good morning and welcome to Proper 9 in the season after Pentecost. This is Brother Logan Isaac broadcasting from Albany, Oregon.

Today’s readings come from Isaiah, Psalms, Galatians, and the Gospel of Luke. What stood out to me this morning connects deeply to the origins and direction of the project I’ve been working on for years—First Formation—and more recently, the growing vision behind PewPewHQ, which is becoming Grunt Works.

🔨 Naming the Work: From PewPew to Grunt Works

For years, I used the domain pewpewhq.com without a clear name for the effort. It was just where I hosted my reflections and work. But recently, I’ve begun branding this collective effort as Grunt Works—the identity, the aesthetic, the mission.

The inspiration comes from my time as a 26-year-old undergrad at Hawaii Pacific University. After a few gap years post-military, I started my degree and encountered Catholic Social Teaching, especially the encyclicals beginning in the 1890s—like Rerum Novarum—which spoke to labor, alienation, and justice in the industrial age.

📰 Roots in the Catholic Worker Movement

That reading led me to the Catholic Worker Movement, started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933. It was a middle ground between state communism and unchecked capitalism, rooted in Christian ethics.

Peter wanted to call the publication The Catholic Radical. His ideas were about communal life and work. Dorothy Day implemented them, giving rise to houses of hospitality and intentional Christian community. Shane Claiborne would later revive some of this ethos with The Irresistible Revolution, and I borrowed the tagline “Ordinary Radicals” for one of my books.

👨‍💼 Theology of Work and Grunts

The “Works” in Grunt Works also echoes the Greek leitourgia—the work of the people, from laos (the people) and ergon (work).

The “Grunt” part comes from my time in the Army. A “grunt,” capital G, is an 11B—infantry. Not officers or support units, just the boots on the ground. I wasn’t a grunt. I was an artillery forward observer (13F), attached to infantry. Pre-9/11, I trained with artillery. In Iraq, I was embedded with infantry.

I wasn’t fully one of them. I didn’t grow up in their unit. But I did everything they did—and more. Carried heavier gear. Ran every mission. Even drove the platoon sergeant. Still, I stood in formation and watched others receive their Combat Infantryman Badges while I got a lesser decoration: the Combat Action Badge. Not quite a grunt.

But that outsider-insider tension? That became part of my identity.

🌉 Bridge People: Theology for the In-Between

That dual identity—being not quite in, not quite out—became a gift over time. I started to see myself as a bridge person, someone who could move between worlds: infantry and support, soldier and civilian, believer and skeptic.

Grunt Works is for bridge people. For those who work but feel unseen. For those on the margins who still carry the burden.

🛠️ Galatians and the Theology of Labor

In Galatians 6, Psaul—possibly reflecting on his Roman citizenship (Acts 22)—reminds us that everyone must carry their own load, and that you reap what you sow. He names the hypocrisy of those who demand circumcision but don’t follow the law themselves.

He’s calling out the Judaizers, yes, but also reckoning with his own privilege as a Roman citizen—a kind of spiritual and political duality. Psaul recognizes that faith without work is an illusion. You can’t expect the fruits of the Spirit if you don’t plant with the Spirit.

🪖 A Warning and a Challenge

We live in a culture that demands something for nothing. That wants resurrection without crucifixion, grace without grit.

But that’s not the Gospel. If you're not doing the work, don't expect the benefits. If you're not moving your feet, you’re not following the Way. That was the early Christian name for the faith: the Way. You’re not standing still. You’re moving—working—serving.

🙏 Final Thoughts

To follow Christ is to be a bridge person, to carry burdens, to do the work. There’s no shortcut to resurrection. Sow with the Spirit. Labor with love. And when it gets hard, remember: the harvest is plentiful.