What can we say June 14? 3rd after Pentecost

    Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7). I love the charming and ancient fresco in Ravenna depicting the visit of the three strangers to Abraham and Sarah under the Oaks of Mamre. What a lovely place-name! Trees mark the spot! It’s hard not to interweave chapter 17’s details of the same moment – and (my seminary training notwithstanding!) it isn’t illegitimate to do so either!

   Rabbi Jonathan Sacks sees Abraham (after the foibles of Adam, Eve, Cain, Noah) as “a new human type.” Until now, people viewed God’s command as “a constraint from which they strive to break free.” For Abraham, God’s command is his life. He calls him the “unheroic hero,” as it’s not about him, but about God. He’s flawed, laughable at times. And then the last laugh comes.

   Three strangers. Of course, Christian theologians have lunged toward the Trinity. But why not simply think “strangers.” The Triune God is active any and everywhere, including when strangers materialize. Isn’t mature spirituality seeing strangers, noticing them, and maybe discerning something angelic or even divine in them?

   These three somehow though know of Sarah’s impending pregnancy – and they can even read her silent thoughts just inside the tent. Robert Alter’s rendering is vivid: “Sarah no longer had her woman’s flow. And Sarah laughed inwardly, saying ‘After being shriveled, shall I have pleasure?’” The laugh, yitzak, is cynical, and ironic – since we know the baby is coming, and that his very name Isaac, yitzak, means laughter. The sermon just has to play on this, how we might snicker at the possibility of new life, and then how when it comes we laugh – for the joy, or even at ourselves for our prior snickering.

   How to preach hospitality – in an unsafe world? The question isn’t Do we do hospitality? but How? Children learn "Don't talk to strangers." But isn't it like "Don't cross the road?" Once you're grown, you've learned how to. Can grownups learn to talk to strangers? Isn't hospitality a kind of curiosity? And a kind of humility? Who've we made into strangers who need not be? 

   How to preach impossibility? Easy for the preacher to rattle off jargon about God doing the impossible. But I doubt many people I preach to expect anything extraordinary or beyond human capacity from God – and that’s likely because I as their pastor don’t expect so much either.

   Romans 5:1-11. Paul is finally warming up to his greatest eloquence after his midrashic meanderings about Abraham and faith. Every time I imagine Paul pacing around a room, dictating this letter, I get slackjawed with wonder. There was no New Testament, no theology textbooks – and off the top of his head he came up with this! Inspired, sure. Still amazes me. What was the secretary thinking? Wow, this guy is on fire today. I ruminate on this in sermons sometimes. No takeaway, no go-thou-and-do-likewise...

   I like Michael Gorman’s new commentary on this (and most other Romans texts!). Romans 5 forms a “bridge” between the 1^st 4 chapters and the next 4 – so it’s pivot. Our text forms an “artfully composed chiastic form,” shaped like the Greek letter chi (X):
   A (v 1-2a): Justification as peace thru Christ

     B (v 2b-5): Hope for future glory

        C (v 6-8): Christ’s death as God’s love

     B’ (v 9-10): Hope for future salvation

   A’ ( 11): Reconciliation through Christ

This matters, since Christ’s death is the center, the fulcrum, of God’s justifying, reconciling work. And “reconciliation isn’t something separate from justification”; they are used in the “same breath.”

   Faith: is it ours? (as most would assume) or Christ’s (as theologians think)? Paul stressed that the initiative is always God’s alone, and even its completion. “God’s grace is the means of justification, and faith is the mode of justification.” Hence it is “not mere assent but is robust: a sharing in the faithfulness of Jesus” (Gorman).

   Notice how for Paul “the road to glory is bumpy and has a cruciform shape: it includes, or will include, suffering.” The “will” matters; it’s not “might,” which we would prefer!

   Romans 5, the preacher should note, is entirely in first person plural. It’s not I have peace with God, or you, you individual person out there, have access to God. It’s we: we who are part of the Body. God doesn’t intend for us to do this alone. The logical consequence of all Paul has declared in chapters 1-4? Peace. C.E.B. Cranfield reminds us that eirene isn’t “subjective feelings of peace (though these may indeed result), but the objective state of being at peace instead of being enemies.” It’s a fact. Done. And not by you but by Christ, and at immense cost to himself.

   James K.A. Smith, in his marvelous On the Road with Saint Augustine, paints a homiletically intriguing picture of what our pursuit of peace is: “Like the exhausted refugee, fatigued by vulnerability, what we crave is rest (‘You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you’)… Joy, for Augustine, is characterized by a quietude that is the opposite of anxiety – the exhale of someone who has been holding her breath out of fear or worry or insecurity. It is the blissful rest of someone who realizes she no longer has to perform; she is loved. We find joy in the grace of God precisely because he is the one we don’t have to prove anything to. "

   "But it is also the exhale of someone who has arrived – who can finally breathe after making it through the anxiety-inducing experience of the border crossing, seeking refuge… The Christian isn’t just a pilgrim but a refugee, a migrant in search of refuge.” He then invites us to imagine Augustine’s City of God “as a tent city, a refugee camp… Think of Dadaab in Kenya, the Sahrawi camps in Maghreb.” Not my usual image of the City of God - but there it is. 

   “Obtained access” in v. 2: F.F. Bruce vividly explains that the Greek, prosagoge, means “the privilege of being introduced into the presence of someone of high station.” Verse 3: “We rejoice in our sufferings” – which is aspirational more than true. 

   There is beauty in suffering; Ray Barfield spoke at our church on just this (check out his little book, Wager: Beauty, Suffering, and Being in the World, on this). People know if you press them: “I was with my mother when she died, and it was a beautiful moment” - although care is required in talking this way, as some haven't had that beautiful experience, and suffering for many is brutally ugly...  Paul has in mind some origami in the soul that suffering initiates. His lovely litany is memorable, and worth repeating (or cross-stitching): “Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope.” I’m tempted to edit Paul a little by inserting the word “might” or “sometimes.” Suffering can make you bitter or mean. Why does it produce character and hope sometimes, and not in others? It's too cheap just to say "If you have faith, if you trust God." Isn't community involved? Doesn't God have mercy on is when suffering drowns us in depression?

   “Hope does not disappoint.” Christopher Lasch clarified how optimism, the sunny view that tomorrow will be a better day, and it’s up to us to make it happen, is vastly inferior to hope, the substantive faith that all will be well, even if tomorrow is worse – for this future is in God’s hands ultimately.

   I may fiddle around with the “poured out” image from v. 5, a picturesque image of the lavishness of grace. Jesus’ blood poured out, pouring coffee in the morning, the pitcher pouring water into the baptismal bowl, Jesus pouring water over the disciples’ feet, the bartender pouring you a drink, the woman pouring oil over Jesus’ head, the priest pouring wine into the chalice, your mother pouring you a glass of milk, a waterfall, water over a dam, a garden fountain. Is there a way all of these and more not only symbolize but actually are the pouring out of God’s goodness?

   “While we were still weak” reminds me of a terrific story. In 1980 I was running “Helping Hands,” a ministry to folks in need at Myrtle Beach, S.C. Our most problematical guy was named Belton. I drove him to the job I’d helped him get; when I came back for lunch he’d quit. I bought him groceries; he sold them to buy queludes. He tore up the temporary living quarters we found for him. Finally the board and volunteers met to decide how to cut him off, I think. All was proceeding in that direction until a woman said “You know, the Bible says ‘God helps those who help themselves.’”

   Everyone nodded, except a very old, frail woman, who countered: “That’s not in the Bible. That’s Ben Franklin, in Poor Richard’s Almanack.” I was impressed. She then opened her New American Standard Bible to Romans 5:6 and read “While we were helpless, Christ died for the ungodly.” And she added “That would be all of us.” The vote was unanimous. We’d keep doing whatever we could for and with Belton. I wish I had a happy ending, like He got on his feet, went back to school, and now is an executive at Bank of America. But no. We hung together another month or so, and then he just vanished. Did we fail? I don’t think so. We kept one of God’s helpless children alive a little longer, which is good. And God’s other helpless, ungodly children got a refresher course in theology from the physically weakest but most spiritually astute one in our group.

   Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23) provides an intriguing snapshot into a turning point in Jesus’ ministry – between when he dazzles the crowds and draws a following to his sending out his followers to continue, expand and even augment his ministry. Matthew reports that Jesus has been curing “every” disease and “every” sickness – which can’t be reality. Donald Hagner calls the “every” here “hyperbolic and symbolic.” People still had cancer and Alzheimer’s and tooth decay and deafness after Jesus left town. If anything, his healings weren’t so people could feel better, but so serve as object lessons for his sermons. His #1 cure was for blindness – and he always then pointed out how the righteous people thought they could see but couldn’t.

   This Jesus, the one who wept when Lazarus died and prayed in intense agony, had “compassion” on the crowds. The Greek esplanchnisthe connotes a twisting pain in the entrails, a writhing, intense emotion. It’s a common translation for the Hebrew riham, which means “womb” and then the pangs the womb underwent during the agonies of childbirth. Watch a woman in labor: that’s how Jesus felt when he saw the crowds, total strangers – and yet he knew them so intimately.

   He didn’t blame them for their plight, or pity their lackluster, colorless, futile existence as the utterly impoverished and despised people in the Roman empire. He understood that they were “harassed and helpless.” How harassed are your people? By their employers, by heartbreaking friends and family, by the chipper Facebook culture that depresses them, by the rancor of political ideology, by ads, by loneliness. The Greek for “helpless,” errimmenoi, means literally “cast down to the ground.” The preacher portrays, imitates and embodies Jesus himself by simply naming the miseries and niggling frustrations people undergo all the time.

   In Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus, besieged by throngs seeking help, sings “There’s too many of you; don’t push me; there’s too little of me; don’t crowd me.” He needs help, more of himself. In our Gospel, Jesus asks his laborers to pray for more laborers! How do we join him in this prayer today? By poking around for laity who’ll get busy? Connecting with non-church people who might turn out to be the naïve, zealous type of new Christian who doesn’t know to be a lazy Christian yet? Or even investing time with sharp young people, middle- and high-schoolers, college students, and daring to ask if they’ve thought about ministry? I became a laborer in the field because an Episcopal priest took an interest in me, somebody with a zero religious resume, and asked if I’d thought about ministry. Never, ever… but it planted a seed that grew years later.

   What does the relationship with Jesus look like? I’m fond of “following” as the image. Jesus goes, I try to stay close. He sets the path, I simply trail behind in his wake. In Matthew 9, Jesus looks at his followers and “sends” them. That is, without him – unless you count spiritually or mystically. They have to figure out where and how to go, and what to do. They have “authority” – but what would that be for us? Not an M.Div. or that some bishop laid hands on me. It’s something more organic in me, or despite me. Maybe it’s just being fool enough to try: is that the authority? Is it trying to get out of the way and let Jesus be where I am?

   I love it that the Gospels provide names of the twelve – although the lists are happily inconsistent. A dozen – with some wiggle room. They are in stained glass in my sanctuary, and little biographies (95% of which is total guesswork/fiction!) are posted in our children’s building.

   Jesus, unhappily for me, directs them not to go to Gentiles but only to the Jews. I wish he’d urged the opposite, given anti-Semitism and often strained relationships with Judaism. Hagner reminds us that this limitation is “temporary,” as Matthew’s Gospel later on sends Jesus’ people to the whole world. Maybe, if you're white, we translate this into our world as We begin with white people. So much to work on in here before we can connect and change out there - although dithering on self for long is so lame.

   Maybe we do go to the Jews first – not to proselytize, but to find common ground. As you saw above, my greatest learning in Scripture lately is from Rabbi Sacks (who died just too young for my tastes and homiletical needs!). In our city of Charlotte, we have more in common, and can work more effectively with the synagogues than with many of the churches – including my own cantankerous Methodist denomination!

   St. Francis heard Jesus’ words about “take no bag, no silver,” and he and his friars (Italian for “brothers”!) did just that. I can't get there. I'm taking my bags, checking out my pension portfolio, garnering funds. I can only stand in awe, with a restless sense of penitence and yearning. {You might enjoy my book, Conversations with St. Francis, based on the many pilgrimages I've led to Assisi and other Francis places!{

What can we say June 7? 2nd after Pentecost

     Genesis 12:1-9 is a great text, one of the key turning points in the Old Testament – or we should say in God’s history with the world. First, there’s a call. Abraham is called (how did he hear??) to go – where? “To a land I will show you.” Which would be…? Like the disciples who drop their nets and traipse off after Jesus: not knowing where they’re going, what the strategy is, what safeguards there might be, how it will all turn out, etc. They just go. Abraham just goes, uprooting self, family, and not heading a few miles away like the disciples, but to a genuinely foreign land, knowing nobody, strange language and customs. Walter Brueggemann named this as “a call for a dangerous departure from the presumed world of norms and security” – which is preachable.

   Brueggemann, I should add, gifted us with one last book (God of All Promises) before his passing, and it is lovely. Poetic reflections with prayers on the chapters of Genesis. On today's text, he speaks with God about things: "You were abrupt with our faith father, Abram. You spoke only a terse imperative to him: 'Go.' Father Abram was to travel light He took with him only your blessing. Abram was as terse as you were. He went!" Then he ponders the 2nd half of Genesis 12, the sorry episode in Egypt trying to pass Sarai off as his sister: "Father Abram lied - because he was scared. Abram is situated between a promise from God and his own lie. He did not think the promises would suffice." Such wisdom.

   Interestingly, we tend to delve into the psyche/self of the one called (or not called). Am I called? Or even Is he or she called? But a more intriguing question is What is God doing? Why does God call – in generally, and specifically now, and here? Russ Reno gets inside God’s head: “Because the children of Adam and Eve are beholden to the lie that worldly life can satisfy our desire for rest, God must interrupt the cascading flow of time, tear out a family from the drumbeat of the generations, in order to cut to the joints and marrow of human history.” Eloquent. And pinpointing God’s motive: to rescue all of us from what is really a lie. And already, so early in humanity’s history!

   So there’s the call, and then the buttressing promise. Reno links call to promise, underlining the context – that this call is right on the heels of the catastrophic Tower of Babel story: “Now God promises to give Abraham-in-particular what humanity-in-general sought to achieve by its own hands when it gathered to build a tower to heaven: a place, a nation, and a name.” I do like that Reno suggests that instead of rejecting the false hopes of the Babel generation, God rather redefines them!

   And so the promise really is for a place, a nation, a name. This threefold promise seems lovely, even powerful – until we consider the dreadful consequences throughout history of the children of Abraham fighting to fulfill that promise. So many horrific episodes through history, the Crusades, the 7-day War, and ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violence get traced back to the idea that “This land is my land!” – and claiming the divine imprimatur of Genesis 12. Not what God had in mind…

   I recall sitting in intro Old Testament in seminary and hearing Prof. Lloyd Bailey explain the dynamic of the “blessing” portion of this promise. God will indeed bless this people – but not so they can be special to the exclusion of anybody. They are blessed to be a blessing. Sounds trite – but it is God’s call to Abraham’s descendents – and fits the summons of the church to be, not a club of the blessed, but those who go out to the highways and biways to be the gifts of God in the world.

   Romans 4:13-25. I find Paul’s intricate theological arguments difficult to refashion into a sermon; even Fleming Rutledge skips this passage in her great collection of sermons on Romans (Not Ashamed of the Gospel) – but I am a bit tempted to try after reading Michael Gorman’s thoughts in his new commentary. He points out how “cryptic” verse 16, verbless in Greek, is, sort of “Therefore, from faith, so that by grace.” The foundation, the basis, the cause isn’t faith, but grace – so important for us Protestants who unthinkingly turn “faith” into the work, the only work but no less a work. Paul’s focus is on Christ’s faithfulness, not ours.

   He goes on to notice how translations of verse 18 (like the NRSV) “may hide what Paul actually means: ‘not to those who adhere to the law alone but rather to those who share the faith of Abraham’” (his translation). He calls Abraham’s “a kind of proto-Christian faith.” Justification is what the Creator and Resurrector does. I love his plunge into the bleakness of Abraham and Sarah’s situation. Her womb isn’t merely “barren”; the Greek nekrosis conveys “the stench of death.”

   Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26. Jesus keeps calling people, almost raising the ante by calling ever more unlikely and unliked people. Now it’s Matthew – the tax collector? A hated man in Capernaum. Not our tax auditor types or the one that threatens to garnish your wages. Matthew probably threatened to break your knees if you complained about him gouging you for too much money – and not for the public good but for those jerks in Rome. The Pharisee gripe makes total sense – although they lump together “tax collectors and sinners,” as if sinning were an occupation! In the 1950’s, politicians like Joe McCarthy and bureaucrats like J. Edgar Hoover tended to lump together “communists and homosexuals,” as if the pairing made it more dastardly.

   Their smug judgment though should alarm us, especially in our day when so many churches assume their calling is to be society’s “moral police.” No one is listening, nor do they care, when Christian people cockily “stand up for something!” Jesus was a radical alternative to the moral police – back then, as he still is today. But he doesn’t scold. He resorts to irony: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” You can bet most Pharisees didn’t get it, and though Yes, we are well.

   And Jesus lifts a verse from the prophets, one that punctuates key turning points in Matthew’s Gospel: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6). There’s no mercy in judging – and Jesus had not much earlier said “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Perhaps, like the older brother in Jesus’ “Prodigal Son” parable, they did not think they needed any mercy – although you know that deep down, in some subterranean, crusted over place in their guts, they were desperate for some mercy. Why else behave in such calculating, morally superior ways than being duped into believing this was the ultimate coverup?

   And now the healing narrative. Two, actually, dovetailed unforgettably. Not quite as vivid as its parallel in Mark 5:21-43, is it? I was taught in seminary to stick to the text at hand and don’t veer into another Gospel. And you don’t want to read a lot in from elsewhere – but in this case, why not preach all we know from this mind-boggling episode from Jesus’ life?

   Matthew plagiarizes (the term we’d use today!) from Mark’s story – and thus his storytelling technique, which in this case is impressive. Or maybe things just unfolded in the way he reports. Jesus is asked, pleaded with to visit a child, the daughter of a powerful Roman military man, Jairus. In Mark, she’s sick and near death. In Matthew, she’s already died! – which must indicate this man’s faith is even greater! Or that his desperate sense of loss is more intense.

   Jesus, on such an important mission, is unfailingly “interruptible.” Important things to do, yes, always, but along the way there’s always a person, someone requiring just some compassion, a kind look and word. Jesus shows us how to be attentive while we’re headed toward wherever we’re going.

   There’s a painting I’ve loved since I first saw it – in a lovely new chapel on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in the village of Magdala, Mary Magdalene’s home town. At ground level, this painting shows the woman reaching out to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment - from her lowly, ground-level perspective.

   She must be a woman of considerable means, having spent huge sums on doctors, in a day when most people couldn’t afford any doctor ever. But all the cash and care money could buy didn’t bring her any health. She was sick and tired of being sick and tired – until she heard about Jesus. Due to her illness, she would have been regarded as unclean, not welcome in any crowd, much less coming face to face with this travelling rabbi / healer / maybe Messiah. But she presses forward, as close as possible without being noticed, barely brushing her hand against the low hem of Jesus’ robe.

   And, Voila! She is healed. Power flowed from him, into her – and he wasn’t even trying. No wonder we speak of the Master’s touch, the way simply being close to Jesus brings an unanticipated wholeness. Jesus notices, puzzling his disciples – and then he has more mercy on her, treating her like no one else would, as a whole, infinitely valued child of God.

   While we're still on the healing of a woman: Peter Storey, in his marvelous new account of his incandescent ministry in South Africa, tells of his first parish - and how some young adults, impassioned by what they were learning of the Gospel, changed many things, including... "There came a symbolic moment of liberation when they decided to attend church with hair uncovered. Because of the role hair texture played in the racialization and stratification of woman in this community, this was a massive step toward self-acceptance."

   Oh, the child. Jesus almost forgot – but probably not. He arrives at Jairus’s house – late, by Matthew’s or Mark’s timeline. If we read slowly, or just use our imaginations, we can overhear the loud wailing of her family and neighbors. Invite your people to feel their pain. Jesus did.

   I love the little details of this healing – more in Mark than in Matthew! He could have thundered a word from the yard. But he enters the home. He takes the girl by the hand. Ask your folks to picture that. Feel your hands. Precious Lord, take my hand… He speaks – and onlookers recalled what he said in his and their native language, Aramaic, so moving that Mark, writing in Greek, records the Aramaic! Talitha kum. Rise up, little girl. So tender. This 12 year old girl stood up. Imagine the sound of the shock, the rejoicing, maybe more intense than the wailing just moments earlier.

   And then, showing his immense compassion and understanding, Jesus speaks to her family: “Give her something to eat.” She’s been sick. She’s got to be famished. Let’s get back to normal. Little girls eat. Families feed their children. Envision Jesus standing in your home. It’s time to eat. He gets that you’re hungry. Enjoy. Be nourished. What a week to have Holy Communion!

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   Check out my newest book, The Heart of the Psalms: God's Word to the World! I've been meaning to write this one all my life, since I did my Ph.D. on the Psalms and have taught and prayed them endlessly. Abingdon also has a study guide and a video series, which groups enjoy.

What can we say May 31? Trinity Sunday

    It’s Trinity Sunday – not a day for theological explication in the preaching setting, but in worship. Trinity isn’t a thing; it is in fact the thing. Then all texts are Trinitarian, all Sundays are Trinity Sunday. A preaching booboo this week might be to attempt an intellectual explanation of the Trinity. Save it for the classroom. In the liturgy, in sacred space, we don’t disentangle, analyze and explain the Trinity. We worship. We listen. We join that Holy Circle. We let the Trinity speak for itself.

   In last year’s post on Trinity Sunday, I speak of my theology professor’s agony trying to theologize about this, how the structure of a musical chord helps us make sense of things, how visuals like the Rublev icon help (or don’t) – and more. I would strongly commend to you now the video of a conversation I had with the brilliant and pastoral theologian Jason Byassee on “God as…Trinity.”

   Genesis 1, hardly a good prooftext for the Trinity, but so thoughtful regarding our probing of the heart and mind of God! My 17 minute video talking about religion and science – much of which involves Genesis 1. I love thinking there about someone like Richard Dawkins – an avowed and militant atheist, from whom I have learned, happily and gratefully, so much.

   I also lucked into a podcast conversation with Dr. David Wilkinson, that exceedingly rare astrophysicist who’s also an ordained Methodist pastor. That is well worth listening to – and pondering. I love his earthy reflection on why it took God so long to make the world. His illustration? When it’s his birthday, his wife spends much time in the kitchen baking him a cake, and it’s a mess once she’s done. When it’s her birthday, he purchases a cake. Which one exhibits the most love? God’s love takes time, and it’s messy.

   Wilkinson calls Genesis 1 not a science textbook (of course), but a ballad, a poem speaking of God creating everything; science shows us how God did so. Stephen Hawking, of course (in his Theory of Everything), explained that you can explain everything without recourse to God. I do believe God is fond of this. You don’t have to believe. It’s personal. You choose to vest yourself in it not being accidental – for which there is solid scientific backing.

   I was moved, and shall never forget, hearing an early lecture in seminary on how God brought order out of chaos – and that this is God’s business, bringing order out of our chaos! Wow.

   On a different level, how lovely is Ellen Davis’s thought (in Preaching the Luminous Word) that in Genesis 1, “God is stocking the pantry,” as Genesis is downright verbose in describing food sources. And so, “Eating is at the heart of our relationship with God and all that God has made… Eating is practical theology – a way to honor God with our bodies.” Indeed, “Our never-failing hunger is a steady reminder to acknowledge God.”

   The first people, and thus all of us, are created in God’s “image.” Which is…? Russ Reno puts it well: “that characteristic that makes us capable of receiving the consummating gift of the 7^th day, the gift of fellowship with God.” This “image” is thus the “basis for our supernatural vocation, the life in Christ greater than any possibility resident in our natural power, but which is nonetheless a genuine exercise of our nature powers.” Lifting these contradictory but fitting ironies up in a sermon is wise, faithful, and hopefully will tease out some thought from our people. The "image" is the part of us that dreams, loves, hopes, cries, wonders, yearns, gets disgusted and strives for good. This "image" is what we look for and are sure to find in every person - which is what drives how we think about any political policy... 

   Psalm 8 ponders all this poetically, and fabulously. Faith is precisely soaking in that God made all those universes even the Webb telescope can’t fathom, and yet the small human being gazing up at it all – and that they are interconnected, and profoundly one in the heart and mind of God! I love a statue just outside Assisi at the Eremo delle Carceri – of St. Francis lying on his back, on the ground. He did this – constantly – and pondered the grandeur of God, come down and touching his small, humble existence. What is man – me, Francis? And when medieval theologians saw “man,” they thought of Christ – which some of us think is good cause not to re-translate such texts with plural “people” and such. Who is “man” – the man being Jesus. This lying on the back, looking up: not a bad “Go thou and do likewise” sermon piece.

 My new book, The Heart of the Psalms, devotes an entire chapter to Psalm 8 and subjects like awe, curiosity, praise, and wonder - much-neglected themes in the spiritual life! The book engages 5 other Psalms in depth - and Abingdon has a study guide and video series to accompany a study for groups or individuals!

   2 Corinthians 13:11-13 is a lovely text, hard to preach upon (for me) – Trinitarian, yes, but actually replete with how we greet and bless one another. I benedict at most of my services using just these words from verse 13. Does it matter to people? Does it bless them in some mystical ways they aren’t even aware of? I have wondered (for instance, in my book Worshipful: Living Sunday Morning All Week) if we have more capacity to bless others than we realize?

   Matthew 28:16-20. The so-called “Great Commission,” although Jesus’ other commissions, not nearly as vague as “make disciples of all nations,” imply touching untouchables, feeding the hungry on your doorstep, not laying up treasure on earth, befriending enemies… No wonder we made this clarion “great commission” such a big thing! – since it can be a bit innocuous. Do we “make disciples” ever, anyhow?

   What Jesus asks of us is in fact encapsulated in this text. Just as Jesus, at his birth, got the nickname “Emmanuel,” “God with us,” here, as his parting words, he clarifies he won’t be the great heavenly fixer, the insulator from all woes – but that simply he will be “with” us. Sam Wells, in his marvelous Nazareth Manifesto, suggests that the most important theological word in the Bible is “with.” God is with us. No small thing, if you ponder it over some time.

   Jesus’ commission is troubling, challenging, seemingly impossible. Go to – Afghanistan? Vietnam? The Congo? And simply tell the Good News – and they’ll fall in line and convert? Laughable. But how do we Go in our day? By loving, praying, showing up to drill wells or lift up orphans?

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   Check out my newest book, The Heart of the Psalms: God's Word to the World! I've been meaning to write this one all my life, since I did my Ph.D. on the Psalms and have taught and prayed them endlessly. Abingdon also has a study guide and a video series, which groups enjoy.