Tag Archives: trust

Songs for Pilgrims (20th Sunday after Pentecost, 10/26/2025)

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Readings (Track 2)

Today’s readings include Psalm 84. Since it’s perhaps not one of the more familiar psalms, let’s ease into it by recalling Psalm 23 (BCP 612):

1 The Lord is my shepherd; *
I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures *
and leads me beside still waters.
3 He revives my soul *
and guides me along right pathways for his Name’s sake.
4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I shall fear no evil; *
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5 You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; *
you have anointed my head with oil,
and my cup is running over.
6 Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, *
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Psalm 23 is often described as a psalm of trust, of pilgrimage. The goal’s at the end: “the house of the Lord;” the psalm describes the pilgrimage, the Lord’s reliable shepherding. There are dark moments (“the shadow of death,” “those who trouble me”), but these do not get the last word.

Now, Psalm 84:

1 How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts! *
My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.
2 The sparrow has found her a house
and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young; *
by the side of your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
3 Happy are they who dwell in your house! *
they will always be praising you.
4 Happy are the people whose strength is in you! *
whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way.
5 Those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs, *
for the early rains have covered it with pools of water.
6 They will climb from height to height, *
and the God of gods will reveal himself in Zion.
7 Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; *
hearken, O God of Jacob.
8 Behold our defender, O God; *
and look upon the face of your Anointed.
9 For one day in your courts is better
than a thousand in my own room, *
and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God
than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.
10 For the Lord God is both sun and shield; *
he will give grace and glory;
11 No good thing will the Lord withhold *
from those who walk with integrity.
12 O Lord of hosts, *
happy are they who put their trust in you!

It’s not hard to recognize Psalm 84 as another psalm of trust, of pilgrimage. Here the goal (“your dwelling”) is at the start (vv.1-3); the rest of the psalm is mostly a description of the pilgrimage. Again, no lack of potentially dark moments (“the desolate valley,” plenty of heights to climb), but these do not get the last word.

There are differences. Psalm 23 so focuses on the shepherding that the “I” sounds pretty passive. Psalm 84 pays more attention to the Lord’s empowerment during the pilgrimage (“whose strength is in you,” “they will climb”). And the speakers are more obviously making choices: better “to stand at the threshold of the house of my God / than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.” And notice Psalm 84’s repeated “happy”:

3a Happy are they who dwell in your house!
4a Happy are the people whose strength is in you!
12b happy are they who put their trust in you.

In passing, while ‘happy’ isn’t a bad translation, the problem is that English doesn’t have a word that matches the Hebrew ´ašrê. It’s ‘happy’ in the sense of well-positioned. Happy is the one whose house is built on rock. The Common English Bible offers “truly happy.”

One commentator writes “Enthusiastic joy in YHWH, the theme developed in the first strophe of our psalm (vv.2-5), and unshakable trust in him, the essential statement of the third strophe (vv.9-13), are the two basic attitudes on the basis of which human paths succeed, because they kindle in the human person an inner strength that empowers to withstand obstacles and overcome them” (Zenger in Psalms 2, 358; verse numbers reflect Hebrew text).

How might we hear this psalm today? Two suggestions. First, to talk of joy and trust is not to go full Pollyanna. The psalm’s well aware of the desolate valleys, the heights that look unclimbable. We daily make choices about what we focus on, what we dwell on, that nurture or not our capacity for joy and trust. What’s the first app I open in the morning, the last before calling it a night? There’s a reason our Book of Common Prayer starts with the daily offices (and bless the folk that created the apps that save us the constant turning of pages!).

That said, joy and trust work differently. Trust is anchored in who we are as a people. Jews trust the God who brought them out of Egypt. So the big annual celebration is Passover, and, no longer being under Pharaoh, the Sabbath means working six days a week, not seven. Christians trust that same God who raised Jesus from the dead. So we gather every Sunday to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, and remember that whatever the situation, God bats last.

Joy is more complicated. Paul: “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4:4), but joy’s not evident in long stretches of his letters. The largest group of psalms in the Psalter: they want joy, they look forward to joy, but at the moment: Help! After all, were joy more often in the present, we’d talk less about trust.

Second, after all the talk in our psalms about the temple, since the Romans destroyed the temple in ad 70, where does that leave us? From our brothers Peter and Paul:

Peter: “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:4-5)

Paul:“In [Christ Jesus] the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. (Eph. 2:21-22)

No need for a single temple in Jerusalem when there are parishes (temples!) scattered around the world, even in Beaver Dam. So we should expect to experience something of the pilgrim’s joy described in Psalm 84 as we come together here? That seems to be the idea, despite the fact that as we and the apostles know (recall Paul’s letters to the Corinthians!) parishes can generate great pain as well as great joy.

The potential for good and evil in every parish is one of the reasons our Eucharistic Prayers ask our God for not one, but two transformations. From Prayer A:

“Sanctify them [the bread and wine] by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son…
Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace…”

Being the temple implies no less!

And this is perhaps the appropriate moment to notice today’s Gospel. Jesus is working multiple agendas: how to pray, what attitudes make entry into God’s kingdom easier or harder, and also—with Psalm 84 ringing in the ears—what behaviors are appropriate or not in the temple.

We’re social animals. And in this culture, as in many others, the default is to sort out the pecking order, no matter where we are. The Pharisee’s prayer is a classic example of that sorting out. But the problem isn’t just some Pharisees; Jesus’ own followers are just as capable of the same behavior. There’s not much distance between “God, I thank you that I am not like other people” and what Paul was hearing in Corinth: “’I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ’” (1 Cor. 1:12).

What of the tax collector’s “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”? That’s an essential part of our liturgy. The pause between the invitation to the general confession and the confession itself is for us to remember, individually and collectively, that we’re dealing with more than words on a page. The Eucharistic Prayer (and remember, ‘Eucharist’ is simply the transliteration of the Greek word for ‘thanksgiving’) is our thanksgiving for God’s mercy to us sinners. But the point is not to stay there, but to enter more deeply into the joy and trust of Psalm 84.

What is life? Not just one darn thing after another, but a pilgrimage to the living God. With David: “You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11).

Jesus: God is generous; be like God (9th Sunday after Pentecost, 8/10/2025)

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Readings (Track 2)

Today’s Gospel contains a promise, a warning, and a surprise—more than enough for one sermon!

The promise: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” It’s probably originally addressed to the disciples, to whom last month we heard Jesus say “See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves” (Lk. 10:3).

“Do not be afraid.” Not because there aren’t things to fear, but because all these are no match for the Father’s good pleasure.

“Do not be afraid.” Our efforts often seem to have no effect; this kingdom is pure gift.

What kingdom are we talking about? Recall Daniel’s vision: four beasts (empires) rise from the chaotic sea, each more inhuman than the last. The Ancient of Days deals with them. Then: “I saw one like a son of man / coming with the clouds of heaven. / And he came to the Ancient One / and was presented before him. / 14 To him was given dominion / and glory and kingship, / that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (7:13-14).

That was an important vision for Jesus, the reason he often referred to himself as “the son of man.” It was important enough that Jesus needed to correct it; vision and reality often don’t correlate exactly. The vision: “that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.” Jesus: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:45). And if this is what Jesus is about, it’s what his followers are to be about. Recall Jesus’ words leading up to that: “42 ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’” (Mk. 10:42-45).

That’s the kingdom the Father is pleased to give to the disciples, to us. Lambs in the midst of wolves, we hang onto it. And we’re greatly encouraged to have Abraham as our adoptive father (our first lesson). Descendants as numerous as the stars at his age? About as believable as us receiving the kingdom. But he believes and it happens.

The warning: stay alert (in the short parable about the waiting servants). What’s that about? In today’s Gospel Jesus doesn’t explain it, but starting with “Be dressed for action” he assumes his absence. His return is certain, but the timing unknown. Stay alert, first, because with the timing unknown it’s not prudent to put off the more difficult parts of discipleship until tomorrow. Stay alert, second, because it’s too easy to fall into the habits of Jesus’ opponents.

A few weeks ago our Gospel text from Luke centered on the Lord’s Prayer. Luke then described multiple conflicts with Jesus’ opponents. Jesus to a Pharisee: “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness” (11:39). So our current chapter (chapter 12) begins with Jesus warning the crowd: “”Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy” (12:1). Surprisingly, in the middle of his teaching someone calls out “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” We heard that last week. To Jesus it sounds like the same greed he encountered among the Pharisees, so tells the parable of the rich fool and transitions into a longer teaching about the Father’s generosity and pointlessness of worry (the last bit of which we heard today).

Stay alert. The Gospels record Jesus’ critiques of the Pharisees not because the Pharisees were particularly bad, but because we too easily fall into the same errors, as twenty centuries of Church history sadly attest. Circling back to “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom,” the last thing we want to do is take that as license to “lord it over” others, to be “tyrants.” Stay alert.

The surprise. Let’s return to that short waiting servants parable. “Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes…” However we expect it to continue, it isn’t with “truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.” Jesus is really serious about this “not to be served but to serve.” The Table: not where we feed God, but where God feeds us. What might this do to our imaginations? I’m intrigued by Miroslav Volf’s suggestion regarding the New Jerusalem: “God has now made the world such that God does not need to rule” (The Home of God p.214).

Finally, a short postscript. This coming of the Son of Man “at an unexpected hour:” that’s about the end of this age, right? Well, yes and no. Yes, that’s primarily what “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” is about. But recall Jesus’ parable towards the end of Matthew:

“’Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me’” (25:37-40). That also is a coming of the Son of Man. That also is a reason to stay alert.

Trust that makes a difference (3rd Sunday after Pentecost, 6/29/2025)

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Readings (Track 2)

Today’s psalm is a gift, and the focus of this sermon. “Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you.” That sounds like our world. The danger isn’t specified, but the psalmist’s language shows that it’s serious: “For you will not abandon me to the grave, / nor let your holy one see the Pit.” Nevertheless, to say “You are my Lord, / my good above all other” is to choose trust and hope, not simply for survival, but for flourishing: “You will show me the path of life; / in your presence there is fullness of joy, / and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.” Does this come easily? Of course not. If it came easily the psalm wouldn’t be necessary. But it’s where the psalmist wants to end up.

As you may recall, Peter cites this psalm in his Pentecost sermon, using it to interpret Jesus’ resurrection. And we often hear it as celebrating our hope for resurrection. That’s not wrong, but it’s not what the psalmist was talking about in their context: “For you will not abandon me to the grave, / nor let your holy one see the Pit. / You will show me the path of life” in this life. This psalm is like Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd / I shall not be in want”), but with the danger more clearly in the foreground.

If we wonder how to make the psalmist’s trust and hope our own, our New Testament readings offer two different perspectives. Let’s look at them briefly.

Paul focuses on freedom, an important word in his time and ours. In our time, as the German theologian Moltmann argues, freedom tends to mean lordship. “Everyone should be his or her own ruler, his or her own lord, his or her own slaveowner.…Each one sees the other as a competitor in the battle for power and ownership.” The alternative, Moltmann argues, is to see freedom as community. “I am free and feel myself to be free when I am recognized and accepted by others and when I, for my part, recognize and accept others.…Then the other person is no longer a limitation of my freedom but the completion of it.”[1] I’m still chewing on this, but I think he’s on to something, and it aligns with Paul’s argument.

The Galatians to whom Paul writes affirm trust and hope, but are still in competition with each other. And that, Paul argues, is to opt for the flesh, not the Spirit. So Paul gives us those well-known lists, the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, both lists about how we live together. Put in the psalmist’s terms, “O Lord, you are my portion and my cup; / it is you who uphold my lot” should be freeing me for more patience, kindness, generosity, etc. Notice again the movement in the first two verses: “I have said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord, / my good above all other.’ / All my delight is upon the godly that are in the land.” Freedom as community, centered and grounded in the Holy Trinity, the original community.

“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.” Paul is, of course, speaking to the churches in Galatia. But the Spirit/Flesh alternatives are equally present in our cities, our nation, our world. So Paul’s words give us another way of praying for these: may the Spirit that brooded over the chaotic waters at creation breath Jesus’ life into ours at every level.

In short, after hearing Paul’s words, we can hear the psalmist’s words (“I have said to the Lord, “You are my Lord, / my good above all other.”) also as rippling out to the psalmist’s neighbors: flesh or Spirit, freedom as lordship or community.

Luke places today’s text shortly after the Transfiguration, Jesus transfigured, talking with Moses and Elijah, and the voice from the cloud “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” And today’s text is about putting that into practice. It’s not that Moses, Elijah, and Jesus are equal authorities, so that we decide in any given situation which to hear, but listening to Jesus we hear Moses and Elijah properly. When that Samaritan village refuses to receive them, Elijah’s fire is not an option. When it comes to Jesus’ call to discipleship the obligations to parents mandated by Moses take second place. (That’s what’s in play in Jesus’ response to “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”)

In terms of today’s psalm, “You are my Lord, / my good above all other” plays out differently before and after Jesus taking on our flesh. This is not because we’re in any way better than the original hearers, the Gentiles more virtuous than the Jews, but that Jesus changes the landscape. There are new possibilities. “I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel; / my heart teaches me, night after night” goes on steroids. For too many cultures, past and present, Paul’s first list (“enmities, strife, jealousy, anger,” etc.) is as good as it gets. But with Jesus’ Spirit counseling, teaching, oh, the possibilities: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” It is still a dangerous world; the danger does not have to define who we are.

Jesus said to the disciples “You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world” (Matt 5:13, 14). Today’s readings give that some focus, send us back to Psalm 16 with fresh eyes, and set us up to respond in trust, hope, and joy to the sending at the end of the Mass: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

[1] Humanity in God pp. 63-64.

Who is blessed/happy? (6th Sunday after the Epiphany, 2/16/2025)

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Readings

Whether we respond to the readings with “The Word of the Lord” or “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church,” I take the readings to set the agenda for the preacher: what might the Spirit want us to hear today in these words of the Lord? That agenda’s in the form of a question, so most of the time the sermon’s an invitation to reflect together. So let’s dive in.

Words like ‘happy’ or ‘blessed’ appear in three of our texts. ‘Happy’ has a broad range of meanings; what are these texts talking about? Well, it looks like they’re part of a long conversation in the Mediterranean world about what counted as a life well-lived. It’s certainly about something more basic than one’s momentary emotional state. ‘Happy’ is the first word in the Book of Psalms, despite many of the psalms assuming situations that have the speakers crying “Help!” In this sense there’s considerable overlap between ‘happy’ in that psalm and Jeremiah’s ‘blessed.’

Both texts talk about two groups, their behavior and the results of that behavior. The Psalm speaks of the righteous and wicked, the behavior of the righteous captured by “Their delight is in the law of the Lord.” Jeremiah speaks of those who trust and those who don’t trust the Lord. Both use the tree image: those who delight in the law, those who trust: they’re like well-watered trees: they endure; they’re fruitful. They’re the ones who are happy (Psalm 1), blessed (Jeremiah). Trees: the image suggests a rather long timeframe. Fruit, or the effects of drought: these take time. The image is hopeful and can nourish our hope. Droughts: they’re a given; we don’t need to fear them.

So these texts are saying that in this life, this world the righteous prosper and the wicked fail? No, for starters because Jeremiah’s career is the antithesis of ‘prosper.’ They are saying that delighting in the law of the Lord, trusting the Lord are life-giving. Notice the careful language with which Psalm 1 closes (and introduces the entire book): “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, / but the way of the wicked is doomed.”

In other words, whether all this plays out in a satisfactory way in this life, this world is left unanswered. Earlier texts often seem to assume that it does; our latest texts—like Daniel or the Wisdom of Solomon—are sure that it doesn’t. Paul’s words to the Corinthians continue this trajectory: without a resurrection in which each receive their due “we are of all people most to be pitied.”

But returning to Jeremiah and the psalm, notice that while for both of them the Lord’s torah (law, or, more broadly, teaching) is fundamental, neither narrows the focus to obeying or not obeying. Jeremiah understands that the issue is often trust, who or what we put our weight on. The psalmist speaks of delight in the Lord’s law or teaching. That’s an invitation to a life of continual discovery. Paul to the Ephesians: “test everything to see what’s pleasing to the Lord” (5:10 CEB).Cue the music from the various iterations of Star Trek, one contemporary vision of a corporate life well-lived.

Hearing Jesus’ words after Jeremiah and the psalm, we might hear them as encouragement: even if you’re poor, hungry, etc., you’re still in the life-well-lived game. And that wouldn’t be a bad way of hearing them. But there’s more.

Earlier in the Gospel Luke recorded Mary’s song. “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, / and has lifted up the lowly. / He has filled the hungry with good things, / and the rich he has sent away empty.” Growing up with your mother singing songs like that will do things—good things—to your head. Three Sundays ago we heard Jesus reading Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…” and here Jesus is doing just that.

“Whoa, Mary, Jesus! Pretty hard on the rich!” we might think. Well, their words reflect centuries of their people’s experience. Of course riches can be used in good ways, but usually? Sirach nails it: “Wild asses in the wilderness are the prey of lions; / likewise the poor are feeding grounds for the rich” (13:19). We shouldn’t assume that these words match our reality, nor should we assume that they don’t. (And, by the way, the next thing Jesus says—which we’ll hear next Sunday—is “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” So however we read our situation, we’ve been told how to respond.)

Happy those poor, hungry, weeping, hated. Not because these are positives, but because God’s reign is—as Jesus proclaims—at hand. Now, in our text we hear “for surely your reward is great in heaven.” So isn’t this another version of “pie in the sky when you die”? No, first, because the border between heaven and earth is porous, and a reward “great in heaven” is a sight better than having received all the consolation you’re going to get. Second, because of where Luke is taking this. Later in the Gospel we hear “And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life’” (18:29-30; italics mine). So, describing the church in Jerusalem, Luke writes “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:34-35). What is the Church for? It is where the truth of Jesus’ Beatitudes can be experienced.

How might we wrap this up? Already in the Old Testament we have the contours of a life well-lived: a life in which our trust in the Lord is growing, a life in which our delight in the Lord’s teaching is growing. To quibble a little with Gene Roddenberry, for all practical purposes the final frontier is not space, but the week ahead.

And with the power of the Lord Jesus’ Spirit active in our midst, this life well-lived is particularly good news for the poor, the hungry, those weeping, those excluded, reviled, and defamed on account of the Son of Man. As one of our Eucharistic Prayers puts it, “that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for him who died and rose for us, he sent the Holy Spirit, his own first gift for those who believe, to complete his work in the world, and to bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all” (BCP 374).

John the Baptist on putting “trust and be not afraid” into practice (3rd Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2024)

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Readings

So, today’s candle, pink, not violet. The traditional name for the third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete (Rejoice). There’s plenty of rejoicing in the first three readings, but John the Baptist’s instructions might sound more like violet. And Luke ends that account with “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” How’s that good news?

Last week we heard John saying “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low.” Well, there go the property values! God’s coming to sort things out. Whether I hear that as good news can easily depend on how comfortable I am with current arrangements (economic, social, etc.). So Luke’s “good news to the people” might be a challenge: am I willing to stand enough with the poor and dispossessed to welcome God’s coming as good news?

God’s sorting things out: how’s that supposed to work? Zephaniah: “I will deal with all your oppressors at that time.” John: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Here what John does is more important than what John says, because it’s too easy to interpret John’s words (and many other words in Scripture) in ways that collide with Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s observation (“If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds”, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”). John calls everyone to baptism: everyone in the water! Continuing repentance is everyone’s work.

Nevertheless, this pink candle: Rejoice. Rejoice, not because things are rosy, but because God’s coming. Paul: “The Lord is near.” Or, with Isaiah: “I will trust in him and not be afraid.” Isaiah isn’t talking about emotions. Often fear is knocking on the door. It’s a matter of what we choose to do, let fear in or let it keep knocking; act on the basis of fear, or trust.

This is what John the Baptist is talking about in the bulk of today’s reading. Yes, he’s talking about repentance. But ‘repentance’ is just a fancy word for making a U-turn: stop doing that, start doing this. Stop acting out of fear (tax collectors: collecting more than prescribed; soldiers: false accusations); start acting out of trust (“Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”). For John, as for Scripture in general, fear and trust aren’t isolated emotions, but the more-or-less conscious motors of our everyday actions.

Two more things about fear and trust, and then we’re about done. First, notice that John’s instructions mostly have to do with the moments when we may think we’re not accountable to anyone. During Advent our culture directs us largely to observable matters: getting the Christmas lights up, sending out cards, buying gifts, issuing invitations. Our tradition doesn’t denigrate that, but does direct us to the non-observable matters, the things we think to do with impunity. While these things may represent a small or large sphere of action; they are our clearest testimony to whether we view God’s coming kingdom as good news or not. And the choices we make there are forming us into people who will feel at home in that kingdom—or not.

Second, these actions expressing trust: in Zephaniah we heard “And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.” One of the ways God does this is through the trusting actions of former oppressors. So the “Gaudete/Rejoice” is about not just God’s future coming, but about the present effects of our responses to that coming.

How might we summarize John’s “good news” today? The Coming One, who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire, is more than capable of empowering us to act in the daily grind not out of fear, but out of trust. Rejoice!

Beginners at believing (11th after Pentecost, 8/4/2024)

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Readings (Track 1)

What a combination of readings! We might title two of them “The Morning after the Night Before,” so let’s start there.

Last week we heard the story of Jesus feeding the large crowd. The starting point there as in the David story is divine generosity. Recall how Nathan’s oracle begins: “I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house…” Now the crowd has followed Jesus, and Jesus tries for a debrief: what was yesterday all about?

Jesus leads with this: “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” Nothing wrong with eating one’s fill, but if the conversation—if the relationship—stays at that level, it doesn’t have much of a future. It’s where many of Jesus’ interactions with folk—then and now—start, with our needs as we define them. And Jesus, being generous, will start there. But if that’s where things stay—my needs as I define them—then there’s about as much future there as in any relationship. Within that framework Jesus is at most one of many possible means to fulfill my ends.

Jesus’ statement gives us a way of wondering about how David got so badly off track. “I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house…” David more than got his fill, but did he wonder about what the Lord wanted out of the relationship? Perhaps not often enough. Not often enough for Uriah the Hittite. But David chose not to disappear Nathan for his unwelcome words. David chose to repent—recall our psalm. So David ends as a figure of hope, and as a model for the serious acts of repentance most of us need from time to time.

A bit later in the conversation with the crowd: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” ‘Believe’: that’s one of this Gospel’s favorite words (32 times in the first three Gospels combined, 85 times in John). Oddly, John never bothers to define it, which may be one source of the arguments regarding how faith and works relate in the rest of the New Testament. Perhaps he thought he didn’t need to. Consider the word’s first occurrence in the Old Testament. Abram’s been in the Promised Land for a good stretch, but no children and he asks what’s going on. At the end of the dialogue: “And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). It’s more than a mental act; it’s deciding whether to keep trusting or head back to civilization. Later it shows up in the wilderness after the spies’ pessimistic report regarding the land. “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me…’” (Num. 14:11). Again, more than a mental act: the people are ready to stone Moses and Aaron and to choose someone to lead them back to Egypt! So, back to John: believing in Jesus means trusting Jesus, particularly when that trust looks like a really bad idea.

So, in our context: believing is more than a hoop I’m supposed to jump through. How easy it is for baptism or confirmation to become hoops! That works about as well as treating marriage as a hoop, rather than as setting the agenda for the rest of one’s life. “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” Believing in Jesus, trusting Jesus: paying attention to what Jesus is up to, letting him turn our world upside down and inside out multiple times so that at last we become, well, human.

Become human, or, in Paul’s language, “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” And because God is generous, because, as Paul spells out, God has showered all of us with gifts, this is doable. We’re on a trajectory toward life. Hallelujah? Hallelujah!

Now, in closing, two things to notice about Paul’s vision. First, this life “worthy of the calling” is inescapably corporate. This contrasts with the scripts that reduce the faith to me and Jesus, which in Episcopal circles can translate into “my spirituality is my affair and all I ask of others is that they not make noise.” This life is corporate. The gifts I receive are gifts my neighbor needs and vice versa. Aristotle got it right: the human being is a political animal, an animal of the polis, and God builds on that. Besides, the endgame is a banquet, a celebration, and who wants to party alone?

Second, the older we get (sorry!) the stronger the temptation to set everything on cruise control. So notice Paul’s language: “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up.” Here Paul is at his most diplomatic, so diplomatic that we can miss the point. Shorn of the diplomatic padding: “Grow up!” And when I find that discouraging or off-putting, I’m reminded of Thomas Merton’s observation in talking about prayer: “We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life!” (Contemplative prayer p.37)

“This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” In the coming week we’ll have multiple opportunities to do that work; may we stay awake enough to recognize them.