Habakkuk 1:1-2:4

   At the beginning of The Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter doesn’t know he’s a wizard or why he has a lightening scar on his forehead. The first question he ever asked his Aunt Petunia Dursley was how he got the scar. The truth is that he got it when he was a baby and the most evil wizard of all time tried to kill him. His aunt, who hated everything to do with magic, said he got it in a car crash. “And don’t ask questions,” she added. The narrator tells us: “Don’t ask questions – that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.”

   If you want a quiet life, don’t ask questions. Church youth worker Mike Yaconelli must not have wanted a quiet life, because he wrote this letter: 

“Dear God: 

   Frankly, I’m bugged.  

   I know you gave us the Bible – you really did a nice job – and it’s helpful. But you have to admit you did leave a lot out. I don’t mean to offend you, but there are so many questions about you, and I can’t find many clues to the answers. … What am I supposed to do? I’ve got all these questions, and I have to ask them because the answers do make a difference in my relationship with you. … Can a Christian have unanswered questions? Even a lot of unanswered questions? When I ask these questions in church … I get these funny looks. And some of the looks aren’t so funny. The people look at me like there’s something wrong with me. Well … is there? … I’ve got to ask you one more question. Is thinking a sin? I honestly don’t want my faith to be weak, but how do I have a strong faith? … I guess what I’m looking for is a faith tough enough to handle doubt. Is that possible?

Anxiously,

Mike Yaconelli”^[1]     

   Yaconelli wrote his letter in 1976 but his concerns are surprisingly fresh. His experience is that people in the church can be like Aunt Petunia. If you want a quiet life, don’t ask questions. But is God like Aunt Petunia? Does God prefer we keep our questions to ourselves?

   We don’t know anything about the prophet Habakkuk except his name, and that he has plenty of questions for God. He probably wrote around the time of the Babylonian domination of Judah, but whatever the historical backdrop, things are going very badly for the prophet and his people. The wicked and the violent appear to triumph, while the innocent are persecuted. He begins with a lament in which he questions God’s justice. Many of us can relate to Habakkuk’s questions: “Where ARE you, God? Are you just going to let this happen?”

   Habakkuk says exactly what’s on his mind. Mike Yaconelli was worried that his questions would be seen as signs of lack of faith, but in Habakkuk we see how challenging God, questioning God, is perhaps the deepest expression of faith there is. You can’t get in someone’s face if you don’t believe there’s a face there.            

   Here’s the thing: We can only ask why God does not run the world better if we’re already convinced that God being who God is should make a difference in how the world works. Abraham Heschel writes that the refusal to accept whatever terror or injustice is going on around us as “God’s will” is an authentic form of prayer. This is an important aspect of the Jewish tradition that we Christians have undervalued. Is it because we’re afraid? Because we want that quiet life? The problem is that running away from our hard questions is the opposite of having a relationship.

   “Three to Tango” (1999) is an unremarkable movie with one remarkable scene. A married businessman asks the character played by Matthew Perry (from “Friends”) to keep tabs on his mistress, played by Neve Campbell, and the Matthew Perry character falls in love with her. At one point, Perry asks Campbell to give him one good reason she stays with the married businessman. She answers that in a year and a half, they haven’t had one fight. And Perry explodes, “He doesn’t care about you enough to fight with you!”

   Fighting equals caring? I’m not talking about the kind of fight in which someone gets bullied or hurt. I’m talking about the kind of fight in which people take each other seriously. By that I mean they stay in relationship; they don’t disengage, pretend the other person doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist. Questions may be the highest form of praise because the questions are willing to take life with God seriously. 

   Texas minister Gerald Mann writes that he can tell that Americans are still a religiously hungry people because they flock to him with their questions. Questions like:

• Where does evil come from?
• Why does God let bad things happen to good people?
• Why don’t my prayers “work”?
• Why should I bother with Scripture?
• Why do some church people behave so poorly?
• Will God love me if I’m an alcoholic or an addict, if I’ve had an abortion or an affair, if I’m black or poor or gay, if I can’t make my marriage work, if I’m out of work, if I’m in prison?
• How can I ever forgive that person who hurt me so very much?
• How do I know what’s the right thing to do?
• Is there any point in trying to do good when the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket?
• How can I overcome the shame, or the despair, or the temptation, or the rage that I feel?^[2]

   Often people are afraid to bring these questions to church, for all the reasons Mike Yaconelli lists. Maybe they think they’re supposed to have the answers. Maybe they think that questioning God, or questioning the church, means they aren’t good Christians, or worse, aren’t good people. Maybe we in the church need to pay attention to the ways we respond to people with questions, and make it clear that they and their questions are welcome. 

   Habakkuk gets an answer from God, but not one that satisfies him. He continues to question and complain. With World Series starting this weekend, it’s the perfect time to quote Leo Durocher: “Baseball is like church. Many attend. Few understand.” Habakkuk reminds us that bringing our questions to God or to God’s community of faith might not get us the answer we want or the clarity we’d hope. What our questions get us is a relationship with God. 

   This weekend is not only the Game 1 of the World Series; it’s Reformation Day. On October 31, 1517, the story goes that Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany, questioning the practices of the Church. Luther didn’t intend to start a new church, only to address the corruption he saw, but he was excommunicated for heresy and the Protestant Reformation began. Luther also didn’t intend to question God, directly, but his questions for God’s church opened a spirit of inquiry, of questioning, that became characteristic of the Protestant movement; Protestant comes from the word “protest,” after all. Questions rock the boat. And the Reformation tradition encourages every individual to pursue the questions of faith in the community of the faithful. Mike Yaconelli concludes, “Doubt is the cutting edge of faith. Questions are the food upon which our faith depends to gain strength and life. … God certainly isn’t afraid of our questions. We shouldn’t be either.”  

   The community of the faithful doesn’t mean the community of the people who have all the answers. Maybe it just means the community of people who understand that the life of faith isn’t a quiet life. Jesus never, ever said to anyone, “That’s a stupid question.” Jesus knew that sometimes we need proof and sometimes we don’t, but either way, we never run out of questions. I, for one, am grateful.

---

^[1]  Mike Yaconelli, Tough Faith: The Search for Honest, Durable Christianity (Elgin, IL: David C. Cook Publishing Co., 1976).

^[2]  Gerald Mann, When One Day at a Time is Too Long (New York: McCracken Press, 1994).

Luke 18:9-14

My mother used to be the Chief of the Grammar Police, taking great pleasure in critiquing the grammar of folks on TV. Then she had a revelation. She realized that you always end up looking good when you judge other people according to your successes. As my mother put it at the time, we all pass our own tests. She never stopped correcting my grammar, mind you, but she became more charitable toward others who mangled the King’s English.

Most of us fall into this trap at one time or another. We want to feel good about ourselves and so we congratulate ourselves for things we’ve done well, like the Pharisee in this parable in Luke’s gospel. This parable would have shocked Jesus’ audience because the Pharisees were the good guys. They tried to be impeccably faithful to all 613 laws in the Torah. They were honest and upright. Tax collectors in first century Judea, on the other hand, were traitors. They collected taxes only for the occupying Roman government. What’s more, the colonial tax system encouraged fraud. You had to collect a minimum, but then it was up to you how much money you could collect on top of that.

The Pharisee arrives at the temple to pray, and he begins by giving thanks. It’s a good start, but his prayer quickly becomes a catalog of his own achievements. It’s as if he’s trying to impress God with his worthiness, but then he goes a step further. Someone else has to be bad in comparison, and the tax collector is an easy target. When he judges himself and the tax collector against his own successes, the Pharisee comes out smelling like a rose. He’s passed his own test with flying colors. You have to wonder what it is he thinks he needs from God.

The tax collector’s need, on the other hand, is easy to see. He’s in dire need of God’s mercy. He makes no comparisons. Jesus says it is this man who went home “justified.” “Justified,” in this context, means “made right with God.” By trusting in God’s mercy and relying on God’s grace, rather than on himself, the tax collector, not the Pharisee, becomes the example of a right relationship with God.

If we imagine that in order to be righteous, in order to impress God, we have to do something, accomplish something, achieve something, the fact is that we can never, ever do enough. If God’s holiness is the standard, then that is a test we can never pass. We might be very good. But when we compare ourselves to God’s goodness, none of us can boast.

Grace is the word we use to describe the fact that we are “justified,” that we are made right with God in any event, not because of what we’ve done, but because of who God is. Think about the firefighters in our now-annual wildfires in California. They didn’t go door-to-door to ask, “Do you deserve to have your house saved? Do you pay your bills on time; are you faithful to your husband; did you ever cheat on your taxes?” No. They try hard to save every home because that is who they are and what they do. So it is with God.

Martin Luther, much like the tax collector, had seen himself as a contemptible sinner, and at first it made him angry with God. But through his study of Paul’s letters, Luther came to understand that he was justified – made right with God – as a gift of God’s grace through Jesus Christ. The phrase he borrowed from Paul is “justification by faith.” To most people today, “faith” means believing – believing that God exists and that Christ is God’s Son. If you think of faith that way, “justification by faith” sounds as though believing the right things is just another way to earn God’s love. But to both the apostle Paul and to Martin Luther, believing in God wasn’t ever questioned. What faith meant was trust – trusting in God, relying on God, saying “yes” to God and to God’s desires for you and for the world. This is what the tax collector does that the Pharisee does not.

Grace is not like a get-out-of-jail-free card in a Monopoly game. Grace is a relationship. It is a relationship with God. It is a relationship that frees us to interact with God and with our fellow human beings with hope. Some people don’t like the idea of grace because they can’t stand the thought that they might actually need it. They hate to think that they might have done or be doing something that God might find objectionable. It’s ironic that it’s in the very earnestness of our quest for holy living that we might actually refuse God’s grace. As we strive to do good, which is what we are supposed to be doing, we can easily become impressed with our own goodness. Once we start thinking of ourselves as having accomplished something, we want credit for it, and there you have our Pharisee.

While the Pharisee may have passed his own test, God has other, more important tests, at least one of which is the loving kindness test. The Pharisee was proud of the fact that he wasn’t lying, cheating, or stealing, but he failed miserably at risking to love the unlovable, in himself and in others. Over and over Jesus commanded people to love – to love God and to love one’s neighbor, and not just the neighbors that are easy to love, but the ones that are really hard to love, too. Love is the only mark by which Christ’s disciples are known, and yet there is not one among us who can say we always love, perfectly, everybody, all the time. And that very truth is why I’d guess that few of us actually have a hard time understanding our need for grace – because everyone has been on the receiving end of less than perfect love.

In the movie, “Bridget Jones’ Diary,” the title character, Bridget, is painfully aware that she is not perfect. She can’t quit smoking, she drinks too much, and she has a knack for saying exactly the wrong thing. In one scene, as she leaves a dinner party where she has once again put her foot in her mouth, she apologizes to a man, assuming he thinks as little of her as she does right at that moment. But the man surprises her. He says, in his dignified, English way, “No, I quite like you, just as you are.” When Bridget tells her usually cynical, urbane friends, they are dumbfounded. “You mean, just as you are…not thinner, or prettier?” they ask in wonder. They all know that Bridget has encountered something rare; something precious; something that speaks to the core of human longing.

God’s grace speaks most ultimately to that human longing. God loves you. You. Just as you are. Both because of and in spite of all that you are. That’s grace.

Lesson: Luke 17:11-19

When I was growing up, handwritten thank you notes were very important. It’s hard to explain to my kids why an email or text just didn’t work for most folks in my parents’ generation. Even though my grandmother would be appalled, I, too, wonder why a truly sincere thank you in any form, even in person – isn’t ample thanks. Is there really just one right way to say thanks?

You might think so from this Sunday’s gospel reading. We start with ten lepers. Ten lepers living on the edge of town, separated from their families, their livelihood, all normal activities and company. Ten lepers who have to shout a warning wherever they go that they’re unclean, because of the community’s fear of their disease. The ten may or may not have had what we know today as Hansen’s disease, but they are lepers in that they are the ultimate outcasts.

Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. When the ten lepers hear that Jesus the miracle worker is in the neighborhood, they come as close as they dare and call out. Jesus tells them to go to the priest, because just as it took a priest to confirm that someone had leprosy, it also took a priest to declare that someone was healed. As the lepers head off to do as Jesus tells them, they’re healed of their disease. Imagine the joy; imagine the relief! As soon as the priest gives the okay, they can return to their families, to worship in the temple, to being productive members of their community. They’re no longer outcasts! They were probably jumping and whooping and high-fiving all the way to the priest.

The twist in the story is that at this point in Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, he’s on the border between Galilee and Samaria, communities that were divided by generations of hatred and suspicion. Jews considered all Samaritans ritually unclean and would travel miles out of their way to avoid having any contact with them.

The focus now shifts from the ten to the one. Only one of the ex-lepers returns to say thank you. This passage is often interpreted as dealing with the importance of gratitude – I’ve interpreted it that way myself. It’s even one of the lectionary passages for Thanksgiving Day. But notice that the healing didn’t depend on gratitude. The nine who didn’t say “thank you” were healed just the same. I suspect that they felt profoundly grateful even if they didn’t express it. Which means making gratitude the centerpiece of this text is a bit like focusing on whether your thank you note is handwritten or a text. I’m guessing Jesus wasn’t really waiting around to be thanked in the right way at the right time.

The one who turned back to praise God and thank Jesus was a Samaritan. Before Jesus heals the lepers, they’re just ten lepers, no distinctions. But once the ten all have been healed, the Samaritan, alone, remains unclean. The old divisions kick into play again. There’s no cure for being a Samaritan. He may not even be welcomed by the priest. Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t follow the others.

It is only to the Samaritan that Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well.” Four people in the Gospel of Luke hear those powerful words from Jesus: “Your faith has made you well.” Each is, in his or her own way, an outcast: either a sinner or ritually unclean. Each healing is followed by a conversation about the Kingdom of God – what life and the world look like under God’s rule.

Ten were healed. One was “made well.” Maybe Jesus is talking about a different kind of wellness. Maybe he meant that deep-seated human divisions are a much more serious malady than even leprosy – that our souls can be far sicker than our bodies and yet many of us do nothing to heal the breach. Maybe he wasn’t commenting on the lack of gratitude of the nine who didn’t return as much as on the system that would accept them and reject the Samaritan. Maybe he was commenting on all the systems that create a “Them” that we can despise because they are not “Us”: race, class, political party, religion, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, education, or identifying as LGBTQ, just to name a few.

We’ll never know exactly what Jesus meant. But it’s safe to say that, to Jesus, “wellness” does not include going back to a life of “Them” and “Us.” “Where are the nine?” asked Jesus. The nine were right back where they came from, safely on the right side of the border, healed of their exterior problems but locked back into their prejudices. Healed, but not well. One commentator notes that we are healed not to stay the same, but to live differently, breaking down divisions in society that exclude people because of all the categories that create a “Them” and an “Us.”

We might need this kind of healing even more than we need to be reminded to be grateful.

Author, poet, and activist Wendell Berry wrote, “Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. … To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation.”

Luke 17:5-10

Once Jesus “[sets] his face to go to Jerusalem” at the end of Chapter 9, he keeps reminding the disciples the road ahead is tough – perhaps deadly – and he’s going to stay on it. He’s just finished telling them that they, too, need to stay the course. That’s when they plead, “Increase our faith.”

If they could just have more fuel, more juice, more faith, maybe they could meet Jesus’ expectations. Now and then you run into someone who says if you only had enough faith, you could do anything: get the job, get the girl, keep your loved one from dying of cancer. The problem is that then when you don’t get the job, or don’t get the girl, or your loved one dies, it’s your fault; you failed the test of faith. This is not only cruel, it’s magical thinking and it isn’t what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is thinking about faith in a very different way.

First, says Jesus, if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could order a mulberry tree to transplant itself into the sea. Why this odd image of a mulberry tree in the sea? The point is it’s absurdly impossible. The meaning of the passage turns on the original Greek, which says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed…and you do…. .” So Jesus is saying, “You can do this absurdly impossible thing. You have enough faith.” With the little faith they have they can do things they never, ever would have imagined. In other words, the disciples don’t need more faith; they need to make use of the faith that they already have.

Then Jesus offers a parable: Imagine you’re a master with servants. Do you thank your servants for doing what they’re supposed to do? Of course not, says Jesus. You expect them just to keep on doing it. And then he switches perspectives: Imagine you’re the servant. Do you expect reward for just doing what you’re supposed to do? Of course not.

Now, this sounds a little harsh to twenty-first century Americans who hand out trophies to kids for just showing up. When my daughter and her husband taught school in Bangladesh, they noticed that the Bangladesh economy seemed to be built on paying people to do simple things for you that most of us would do ourselves. This was true not only for the privileged few but pretty much everyone. The bicycle rickshaw drivers paid someone to wash their vehicles. No one was expected to carry his own bag out of a store. My daughter also noticed that her students rarely said thank you. In that culture, when people were just doing their jobs, paying them for it was enough. Maybe first century Judean culture was similar.

So add these two thoughts together: First, if you have only a speck of faith – and you do – you’ll be able to do unimaginable things. And second, stop expecting someone to make a fuss when you do what you’re supposed to be doing. Personally, I’m one hundred percent in favor of thanking people, but our culture is not Jesus’ culture. This is Jesus’ message to his disciples: Stop worrying about whether you have enough faith and get to the business at hand.

Part of what Jesus points to is that “faith” isn’t about believing the right beliefs. Faithfulness is simply doing what we see needs to be done to bring us closer, even a tiny bit closer, to living in the world God wants for everyone. Faith doesn’t have to be heroic. I don’t think faith even has to be particularly religious; it certainly allows room for all kinds of doubts. Maybe faith is just being attentive to the needs around us and committing ourselves to doing what we can with what we have, trusting that God will make use of it.

That sounds pretty ordinary. Like a mustard seed.

A few years ago when we were faced with a government shutdown, Anne Lamott compared it to the alcoholic uncle at family holidays who has been threatening to do something rash every time he gets drunk, and he “finally goes and does it. He finally does some bizarre, bullying, irrational act that he has been threatening to do for awhile.” How does the family even begin to deal with the havoc the alcoholic has caused? Get him to bed, she says. “He’s on his own now. We can love him, later. … In the meantime,” she wrote, “the praying people pray. Someone sweeps. The children and the elderly are fed, and comforted. The kids go off to school. Everyone pitches in to help clean up. … And since we are not going to figure this out today, and since ‘Figure it out’ is not a good slogan, let’s do what we’ve always done. We’ll stick together, and get the thirsty people a glass of water. I’ll remember the sticker I saw once, of Koko, the sign language gorilla, above the words, ‘The law of the American jungle: remain calm, and share your bananas.’ I am going to fill a box of warm clothes and take it to Goodwill: this is going to be a terribly cold winter for the poor, what with sequestration and God-only-knows what the shutdown adds to that. I am going to pick up litter. I’ll send some money to one of America’s hunger projects. I’ll pray and pray and pray, all day, that we’ll all pitch in to help our most vulnerable, and that we’ll help each other keep the faith, and our senses of humor. Remember: laughter is carbonated holiness. I swear to you, it is.”

That is what faith looks like.

Jeremiah 32:1-15

In this week’s Hebrew Scriptures passage, the prophet Jeremiah takes a break from lament to make an investment. It’s about 587 BCE, and Nebuchadrezzer II, king of Babylon, is besieging the city of Jerusalem. For thirty-some chapters, Jeremiah has been predicting doom. The king of Judah finally takes this personally when Jeremiah says the king himself will be dragged off to Babylon as a captive. King Zedekiah jails Jeremiah for treason. As one commentator put it, “Real prophets often find themselves in some sort of confinement; false prophets on the other hand often drive Jaguars.”

So Jeremiah is imprisoned in the palace when the word of God comes to him, with instructions to redeem a piece of family property near his hometown of Anahoth. God says Jeremiah’s cousin Hanamel will show up to offer him this opportunity. When Hanamel does indeed appear with the sales proposal, the prophet decides he’s heard an authentic word from the Lord.

Jeremiah goes to great lengths to make sure the sale is legally executed, and then gives strict instructions to his scribe to put two copies of the deed – one sealed and one unsealed – in a clay jar – perhaps the ancient equivalent of a safety deposit box. All this must have mystified Hanamel and the palace guards. No real estate agent of any century would come within a ten-foot pole of this land transaction. The fair market value of a piece of property about to be invaded by Nebuchadrezzer is precisely zero, at least to a Judean. That’s probably why Hanamel is unloading it. He wants his assets to be liquid. He’s probably giggling all the way to the bank, or more likely, all the way out of town, out of harm’s way.

The last verse of this passage, verse 15, explains Jeremiah’s motive: “For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” On the other side of doom, says God, there is hope. It’s the ultimate in insider trading: investment advice from God. Except that, unlike normal insider-trading situations, there are no facts on the ground to prove this is a good deal. Jeremiah acts on faith and lives in hope that God’s purposes will be worked out in the course of time, even if there is nothing pointing to that right now.

In January of 1943, three months before he was arrested and later killed by the Nazis, the Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words about Christian hope during dark times: “…There remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely difficult to find, of living every day as if it were our last, and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a great future. It is not easy to be brave and keep that spirit alive, but it is imperative.”

Although Bonhoeffer speaks of hope, he doesn’t offer anything warm and fuzzy or especially reassuring about the immediate future. And as it turned out, he was talking about trusting a great future that he, personally, did not reach. It reminds me of Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Like Bonhoeffer, King knew that he wouldn’t see his dream of equality realized in his lifetime. It’s still not realized. And yet King and Bonhoeffer continued to move toward that dream. They continued to hope. When Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in prison, he wrote a letter to his fiancée, Maria von Wedemeyer: “When Jeremiah said, in his people’s hour of direst need, that ‘houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land,’ it was a token of confidence in the future. Our marriage must be a ‘yes’ to God’s earth. It must strengthen our resolve to do and accomplish something on earth.”

Bonhoeffer was telling his fiancée they must live as though there’s hope, because our faith, ultimately, is that there is hope. We’re surrounded by bad news that could drive us to despair: climate disruption, government corruption, mass shootings, the immigrant crisis, white supremacy – we might be tempted to stick our heads in the sand and ignore the news because we feel so helpless. Or we might be tempted to live a kind of hurricane party existence. If you’ve never lived on the Gulf Coast, the object of a hurricane party is to consume large quantities of alcohol while a hurricane is coming on shore. It’s the ultimate expression of “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

There are many ways to numb ourselves from reality. But that’s not what God calls us to do. The people who have Jeremiah as their prophet, the people who have Jesus as their Savior, the people who have Bonhoeffer and King as their martyrs, the people who know that God is the source of their lives, these people do not despair. These people live lives of radical hope – not hope that’s a sentimental feeling, but hope that is a commitment to action; a hope that allows us to see the world differently and work to bring that hope-filled vision to life.

Charles Schwab used to say, “Own your tomorrow.” Followers of Jesus are the ones who insist that God owns tomorrow, and it is good. We are the ones called to live into hope by committing to action. To live into hope by acting for our planet. To live into hope by acting for our children, whether they’re struggling with school, or struggling with addiction. To live into hope by acting for relationships worth repairing. To live into hope by acting for our American democracy. To live into hope by acting for Martin Luther King’s dream of equality.

There’s an old Greek proverb that says that a society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.

Lesson: Luke 16:1-13

This Sunday’s gospel passage, the Parable of the Unjust Steward, is one of Jesus’ most confusing parables. Commentators are all over the map in their interpretations. A rich owner discovers that his manager has been dishonest. Fearing he’s going to be fired, the manager decides to do some quick dealing. He goes to a few of the owner’s clients and settles their debts at much lower rates. The manager figures that the clients will be grateful and treat him well in the future. The owner finds out about this strategy, and this is where it gets strange.

The owner commends the manager for acting “shrewdly” (NRSV). One of the challenges of this parable is figuring out whose side we’re supposed to be on. And another challenge is that it’s followed by four sayings offered as interpretations that sound as though Luke had a handful of random and inscrutable sayings of Jesus and decided to tack them on here. “Just put them here; no one knows what this parable means anyway.”

A mini-course on the economics of Roman-occupied Galilee in the first century is a good place to begin. Rich landlords were like loan-sharks. They charged exorbitant interest rates, and when the peasants couldn’t pay up, they’d lose the family farm. In fact, that was precisely the rich landlord’s plan – to increase and consolidate his holdings. Both the rich man and his manager were exploiting desperate peasants and violating the Torah.

Jesus’ hearers would know that typical debt contracts hid these exorbitant interest rates from illiterate peasants. Today, we might compare this to predatory pay-day loans. The manager was probably extracting his own cut of the profits, as well, and on top of that, Rome would take a share. When he reduced the payments, the manager may simply have forgiven his own cut of the interest. Or he may have been doing what the law of Torah commands by forgiving all the hidden interest in the contracts. He might even have been switching sides; maybe he quit working for the wealthy landowner in order to start working with the oppressed poor – which would explain why Jesus seems to commend him. Maybe the rich man recognizes that he needs at least to appear to be following Torah, and so he commends his manager.

That’s one possible explanation for what’s going on here. Still, it doesn’t tell us whose side we’re supposed to be on or why Jesus is telling his disciples this story. Here are a couple of thoughts: One thing for certain, the rich man is not the good guy here. In Luke and elsewhere, Jesus makes it very clear: No one can serve God and wealth – other translations use the word “Mammon,” a personification of wealth that makes it more obvious that wealth really can take the place of God in people’s lives.

In the Luke’s context, if you were rich, it meant you exploited others to get that way. On the one hand, we might reasonably say that being rich isn’t bad, after all. It’s exploitation that’s bad. We can look at our own economy and see exploitation in the wide gap between what CEO’s and workers earn, or the fact that when billionaire Jeff Bezos cut health benefits for part-time workers at Whole Foods, the richest man in the world saved the equivalent of what he makes from his vast fortune in just 6 hours.

On the other hand, isn’t it incredibly easy for all of us to ignore the way our economic system exploits people? It’s easy to enjoy cheap goods and ignore the actual cost of the manufacturing process on the workers. U.S.-made goods cost more because we have minimum wage laws and laws that protect workers’ health and safety. Places like Bangladesh or Guatemala that don’t have these protections put the costs of industrial accidents or chronic work-related ailments on the worker, instead of passing it on to us, the consumers.

It’s easy to ignore the catastrophic impact of climate change on the countries that had very little to do with causing it. Pakistan’s contribution to climate change is minimal, the level of emissions of that country is relatively low, but right now more than a third of Pakistan is underwater and about 1,400 have been killed by the floods. As one commentator put it, “It is like nature has attacked the wrong targets. It should be those that are more responsible for climate change that should have to face these kinds of challenges.”

Perhaps the real difference between the rich man and his manager and us is intention. The rich man and his manager meant to cheat the debtors. I don’t know any average consumer who wants to cheat the workers in Bangladesh or the Philippines of a decent living or safe workplace, or who wants part time workers at Whole Foods to have less access to health care. We don’t intend to exploit the planet by investing in companies that make gas-guzzling cars or burn coal. But at some point, when we know the impact, we’ve crossed the line from “I didn’t know any better” to, “Now I know, but I’m going to ignore it because it’s inconvenient” or because I want to spend less for my stuff or whatever reason we tell ourselves so we don’t have to change.

Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

But here’s the thing: We may do better when we know better. We may eat less (or no) meat, drive an electric car, carry our own reusable bags, plant natives, fly less, and use solar power but it still doesn’t result in the huge change needed to turn climate disruption around. By changing consumption patterns, we just might be able to influence companies to change their production patterns to more sustainable and humane methods. But others point out that making it the duty of individuals to limit global warming is misguided. Climate change is a planetary-scale threat and requires planetary-scale reforms. The power of consumers pales in comparison to that of international corporations, and only governments have the power to keep corporations in check. A recent report found that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1988. A mere 25 corporations and state-owned entities were responsible for more than half of global industrial emissions in that same period. Maybe these corporations don’t intentionally want global warming, either. What they want is a quick profit, a high return on their investment. But now, we all know the consequence.

So, what would Jesus do about climate disruption? Luke’s Jesus consistently speaks up for the poor and marginalized. He invites people to change the world by disbelieving, by no longer believing in the stories that we currently allow to shape our lives, the stories that end up destroying people and the planet. Stories like “Being successful means being rich.” Stories like, “There isn’t enough to go around so I’d better get what I can.” Stories like, “If I win, someone else has to lose;” or, “Progress means economic growth;” or “People love me for my car, my house, my shoes, my stuff;” or “Corporations can’t be held accountable.” Instead, Jesus points to a new story, the story he calls the Kingdom of God. It’s a story about a loving God who, like a benevolent king, calls all people – all people – to live life in a new way, the way of love.

Author Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, died on September 1. There has never been a better time to revisit that book. Ehrenreich was asked in an interview, a while back, what she would give up to live in a more human world. She answered, “I think we shouldn’t think of what we would give up to have a more human world; we should think of what we would gain.”

Amen, and thank God for the life and witness of Barbara Ehrenreich.

Luke 13:10-17

Rules are crucial to an ordered, fair, safe existence for everyone. But in this Sunday’s passage in Luke, Jesus seems to challenge an important religious rule, one of the Ten Commandments. A woman with a debilitating spinal condition shows up on a Sabbath while Jesus is teaching. Jesus sees her, touches her, heals her. “There are six days on which work ought to be done,” fumes one of the religious leaders to the crowd. He’s referring to the fourth commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Jesus doesn’t say this rule is wrong; he intends to keep the Sabbath. Where he differs with the authorities is on how to do that. I assume the religious leader isn’t against healing; he just wants Jesus to wait until tomorrow. The woman’s condition isn’t life-threatening. What’s one more day?

In a biting response, Jesus says the Sabbath is the perfect day to set someone free from eighteen years of a crippling condition. Jesus refers to Deuteronomy’s version of the Ten Commandments, which adds (I’m paraphrasing), “Remember when you were slaves in Egypt? Remember when you had no day off at all? That’s why you get a day off. It’s about freedom.” It’s radical; you even had to give your animals the day off. One day of freedom for everyone. 

There’s a very good reason for keeping the Sabbath, and Jesus agrees with this. Following rules for the sake of following rules, however, is not “holy.”  

To be perfectly fair to the religious leader, many of us have a lot in common with him. He’s probably thinking, “Once you start making exceptions, all hell breaks loose.” Maybe keeping the Sabbath isn’t at the top of your list but most of us have rules we think are important, and we get nervous if we see people disrespecting them. Maybe it’s small-ish things like eating only organic foods, children’s bedtimes, or answering cell phones at the dinner table. Maybe it’s a much larger issue, like traditional gender roles, how to interpret the Second Amendment, or whether a former president should be held accountable for violations of the Espionage Act. Whatever it is, there are some rules we feel you just should follow. And if you don’t, who knows what will unravel next?      

Jesus doesn’t say the rules don’t matter. He’s saying that sometimes a reasonable rule or a good law that works well for some people causes suffering for others, or just plain leaves people out. Take eating organic, for example. In a class on environmental ethics, a fellow seminary student reported on how much better organic food is for the planet and people. No argument there, right? They gave us all a taste test with organic and non-organic carrots, and sure enough, the organic carrots were tastier. And then another student, a person of color, asked, “How much more do the organic carrots cost?” At the time (mid-1990’s), it was a considerable difference, which isn’t the case today for carrots; although, still, organic produce costs about 50% more on average. Then the student pointed out, with some impatience, that eating organic was a luxury not everyone could afford. That whole communities of people were left out of the health benefits of eating organic, not to mention that good feeling of knowing they were doing the right thing for the planet.

The religious leader is sticking up for the principle of law and order, and I think most of us can support that. But it’s easy for him to maintain his principles without suffering. The woman didn’t have that freedom. 

Jesus isn’t saying do away with the Sabbath. He’s pointing to a systemic barrier. The authorities demand rigid observance of the law without empathy for how it impacts others. The religious leader doesn’t see it, and that’s exactly what privilege is. It’s being able to ignore things that confront other people every day. Jesus is saying the point of the Sabbath is to serve people and draw them more deeply into the abundant life God offers – not just to some people, not just the to people who don’t have to think twice about the rules, but to all people. God is a God of love, mercy, compassion, and justice. Focusing on that keeps the Sabbath holy. But sometimes holiness means rocking the boat.  

How does this impact walking the path of faith? Where in your life do you see rules that create barriers that don’t impact you, but impact others? Especially the systemic barriers. For example, healthcare should be accessible to everyone, but it isn’t. Even more troubling is that the means to maintain a healthy lifestyle isn’t accessible to everyone. It’s tragic not to be able to afford insulin if you’re diabetic. It’s perhaps more tragic not to be able to afford highly nutritious [organic!] foods, a gym, and the time and flexibility to use it in order to avoid diabetes in the first place.

   My favorite part of this story is at the end. “The entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things he was doing.” They got it. Ordinary people, living their lives, doing the best they could, working hard, caring for their families, trying to make the best of every day. And once a week being reminded of what it’s all about, that there’s a purpose to all of this, that each small life matters, that human life – all of it, the rule-abiding religious leader, the crippled woman – all of it matters, all of it is precious to a God who loves passionately and whose love simply will not be confined or restricted by any rules, but will finally find and embrace each one of us. 

Luke 12:49-53

Yikes! What’s going on with Jesus in this passage? Where’s the stained-glass window Jesus, the pretty, peaceful guy holding the lamb? A preacher might be tempted to choose one of the other lectionary texts for August 14. I checked them; they aren’t much more comforting.

Jesus says, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” With all that’s going on in our world, and particularly our sorely polarized nation, the last thing we need is a gospel text that encourages more division. But hang in there. Jesus did not have an evil twin or suddenly get a personality transplant. This is the same Jesus who reminded us just a couple of chapters back that the two greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.

Which is exactly Jesus’ point here. Relentlessly loving God and neighbor is risky. Think about it. In his words and actions, Jesus shows us that when he says love your neighbor, he means not just the neighbor who’s easy to love, but the neighbor who’s very hard to love. The one you’d rather not sit next to on the bus. The one you don’t want for a colleague. The one you avoid at the family reunion. The one you hope won’t go to the polls next Election Day. The one who sees the world entirely differently from you. Love that neighbor, which includes intending for him, and even working toward, his well-being, even if it seems he’s doing all he can to work against your well-being.

That kind of love is risky. It doesn’t make people popular, at least not with everybody. We all can rattle off a long list of peacemakers and justice-lovers who loved their neighbors the way Jesus did and were killed or jailed for their efforts: Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, Bobby Kennedy, Oscar Romero, Anwar al Sadat, Nelson Mandela, Harvey Milk, Yitzhak Rabin, Rachel Corrie, environmentalist Tim DeChristopher; and others whose names we’ll never know who resisted the Holocaust, fought for civil rights and thought women ought to have the vote.

Jesus wasn’t saying that he wants people to turn against each other. He’s saying that if people follow him, really follow him, they can count on offending someone, even someone close, even someone they love.

When I was growing up, my mother’s family, the Canadians from Scotland, went to church, but my father’s family, the Californians, did not. My father spent his first 12 years in Columbia, California, in the Sierra foothills. His mother had been raised a Methodist and thought church was fine, for other people anyway. My grandfather’s family was unchurched long before it was the cultural norm. There was a Presbyterian church in Columbia; it’s still there and it’s called the Church of the Forty-niners, which, by the way, has nothing to do with football. When my father was six- or seven-years-old, he heard the church bells ringing every Sunday morning. He asked his mother what it was, and when she explained, he said he wanted to go there. She told him go ahead, and he did, all on his own. It’s mind-boggling to me now – a little kid taking himself to church. And he kept going. My grandfather, a man of few words, told my dad it was a waste of time.

My dad’s family moved to Stockton, so my father started going to Stockton’s First Presbyterian Church, across town from their house. He had to take the streetcar and walk a ways to get there. His father told him, again, what a foolish waste of time that was. My dad had the impression that my grandfather thought going to church was somehow weak.

Jesus isn’t talking about going to church in this passage. He’s concerned with the persecution, if you will, not of people who choose one faith over another but of people who strive to love God and neighbor. In my father’s story, it turned out that the fact that he went to church wasn’t as divisive as the ethics he developed as he grew in faith. I never saw my father behave holier-than-thou, but some members of his family treated him with a kind of, “Who do you think you are?” attitude because he was committed to kindness, fairness, and generosity; to racial equality, economic justice, and honesty. It’s complicated – families always are. But it is a strange phenomenon: Sometimes when people see someone committed to doing what’s right, they feel critiqued, even if that’s not the point at all.

What concerns Jesus is this: When anyone has the nerve to look at the way things are and say, “This isn’t right,” it divides people. “This isn’t right” challenges the status quo. Those who benefit from the status quo will fight tooth and nail to oppose anyone who tries to change things. Jesus sums up his frustration by noting that people can look at the clouds and predict the weather, but they can’t see the way things are here and now. They can’t look at what’s going on around them and “interpret the present.” Why? Because they are satisfied with the way things are right now and don’t want to change.

Jesus is inviting people to open their eyes to what’s really going on. Throughout his ministry, Jesus tells hard truths. He points to the way culture creates insiders and outsiders based on what works best for those with power and privilege. He decries the way this leaves some people marginalized or even oppressed. He shows what happens when people are possessed by their possessions or trapped by the trappings of success. He reveals how fear shuts down the human heart, so that we build barricades between us.

I promise you, if you do these things, it will create divisions. David Sellery writes, “[W]e are to build the kingdom by loving God and neighbor. We are not to coerce the kingdom into existence. We are not to con the kingdom into being by sugar coating God’s word. With humble and honest witness, through the grace of God, we are called to help love [God’s] kingdom into being. And let the chips fall where they may.”

In my last blog (https://solve-by-walking.com/2022/08/01/dont-be-afraid/), I quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. as having said, “Everybody can do something.” It sounds like something Dr. King would have said, but I couldn’t find a speech with those exact words. I did find a similar quotation in a sermon entitled “The Drum Major Instinct” that King preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta two months before he was assassinated:

“Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. … You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

Everybody can do something. Everybody can serve. Close enough.

The reason I wanted the context for this quotation is that I can hear the follow up question: “If everybody can do something, what should I be doing? How should I serve?” The word people in the Christian tradition use to answer these questions is calling, or vocation, from the Latin word vocare, which means “to call.” Basically, your calling is the thing you are supposed to be doing based on your talents, interests, passions, abilities, opportunities, etc. Besides aptitude and desire, there must be a quality of service, of somehow making the world a better place instead of a worse one. No one has put this better than Frederick Buechner:

“By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either. … Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking)

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” The only argument I have with Buechner’s definition is that you might conclude that calling and occupation are always the same thing. In my tradition, God calls everybody, whether you have a job or not. Whether you like your job or not. Sometimes a job is just a job. Although whatever your job, you’re certainly called to do it in a way that increases love, peace, justice, honesty, health, well-being – what the Bible calls shalom. But there are lots of folks who don’t have a job because they’re retired, unemployed, on disability, whatever. Nevertheless, everyone – everyone – is called. As someone once said, “If you’re wondering if you’re still called, check your pulse. If you still have one, you’re still called.”

How do you figure out what you’re called to do? In the Christian tradition, the word we use is discernment. You’re probably familiar with some of the secular tools that help people make career decisions. Back in the 1980’s what I was a young lawyer, it seemed everyone I knew had an MBA. The Strong-Campbell Vocational Interest Test, Myers-Briggs, and a good career counselor reminded me I’d loathe accounting, marketing, and pretty much anything commercial. Nix on the MBA. I also know people who swear by What Color is Your Parachute?

Other tools I’ve found helpful include The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, which is very spiritual but not grounded in a particular faith tradition. When I was trying to decide whether to go to seminary, I sought the help of a spiritual director. A spiritual director is trained to listen in order to help people hear their own passion, as well as listening for God’s leading. My experience is that God communicates with us through other people, through doors that open or close, and through my own trial and error.

Sometimes our volunteer work is our calling. Think of President Jimmy Carter and his work with Habitat for Humanity. Sometimes what we think of as our hobby is our calling. If you are blessed with musical or artistic talent, putting art into the world may be your calling. Once in a while, someone asks me, “But how does my art or music help make the world better?” I think the answer is obvious, but what I say is, “If all the people desperate for power and wealth and all the people stuck in fear or hatred created art or music or poetry instead, wouldn’t it be a better world?” Beauty and creativity are gifts from God, gifts that enrich culture and human existence. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty convinced if people danced more, it could heal the world.

If you adore animals, maybe you’re called to rescue abandoned dogs. If you love gardening, maybe you’re called to tend the flower beds in public spaces or grow zucchini for the food bank. Some people are called to public activism. Others are called to quiet acts of kindness. Calling also has to do with stage of life. If you’re a busy young parent, maybe your calling is reading to your toddler every night. It really will improve the world.

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” The refrain of a hymn by David Haas, “We Are Called,” sums up calling pretty well:

We are called to act with justice.
We are called to love tenderly.
We are called to serve one another, to walk humbly with God.

Luke 12:32-40

   There are some things that just don’t go together. Toothpaste and grapefruit juice, for example. Baseball and sushi. A “certified organic” label on a pack of cigarettes. And the phrase, “Do not be afraid,” followed shortly by “Sell all your possessions and give alms.”  

   And yet, Jesus links those two phrases in this passage in Luke’s gospel. Do not be afraid? Sell all your possessions? Your congregation might think it’s a good Sunday to count the panes in the stained-glass windows until the sermon is over. 

   A few verses before this we read Luke’s version of the familiar passage in Matthew about the lilies of the field. In those verses, Jesus says not to worry about what you’ll eat or what you’ll wear. God knows you need those things, says Jesus. So don’t worry. I think Jesus is saying a couple of things with “don’t worry” and “don’t be afraid.” He’s saying God has given the world all that we need for everyone to be clothed and fed. As Mahatma Gandhi put it, “Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed.” And Jesus is saying that perhaps our anxieties and fears come from being held captive by our possessions. Where your treasure is, there your heart shall be also. 

   A while back I saw a presentation made by a couple who had spent two decades in Africa doing ministry there. They were provided with a home that was simple but had most of the comforts they would expect here in the U.S. except that they had no running water. Their water was brought to them, carried for them, by their own personal water carrier, a man who made ten trips a day to a well some distance from their home. They came to think of this man as their “running” water. But otherwise, they had things and resources that the people living around them could only imagine. And so, they had a guard. Looking back on the experience, the couple noted with wisdom as well as sadness that when the rich and the poor live side by side, a guard is necessary.

    This story points to something else Jesus is saying. He’s saying what I think most of us know in our hearts: anxieties about what we’ll eat, or drink, or wear don’t belong in the life God wants for us – for any of us, for any of God’s creatures. The fears of people who genuinely don’t have enough, and the fears of people who have plenty but are afraid to lose it: none of these fears belongs in what Jesus calls “the kingdom of God.” And that’s what this passage is about – it’s about setting a course for the kingdom. It’s about getting ready for the kingdom.   

   The kingdom of God or the reign of God is the way Jesus describes what life on earth would be like if God were our only king. The word “king” sounds archaic and patriarchal to our ears; it isn’t as powerful a word to us as it was to his audience. Don’t let that get in your way of appreciating that Jesus is describing a reality that is possible, a reality in which there is no oppression, in which all are equal, and all have enough. That reality is God’s goal for us. That is what God wants for us. Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Not later, but now. Dorothee Soelle writes that when Jesus spoke of the nearness of the kingdom of God he was never speaking of an event in the future, at some date on the calendar yet to be decided. 

   So, in the here and now, we are to be dressed for action, says Jesus. Not in order to be “saved” at some point in the future, but in order to participate, here and now, in the reality God desires for God’s world. Now, it might seem as though Jesus is just shifting us from one fear – the fear about whether we have enough – to another fear – the fear about whether we’re ready enough. But Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid.” And when you think about it, it’s often preparation that calms our fears. 

   As amazing as it seems, school will be starting within a couple of weeks. The first day of school can be frightening but it’s much easier if you’re prepared for it. That’s why there are orientation days for kids starting new schools – so you can get used to the building and find out what your schedule is going to be. Being “dressed for action” on the first day of school includes having your pencils sharpened and the right kind of binder, and it always helps to have a friend to help you get through all the new things that you’ll encounter, whether it’s a new school or just a new classroom and teacher.

   But when we think about getting ready for the first day of school this year, we’re brought right back around to fear. An article in Sunday’s New York Times, “Trained, Armed and Ready. To Teach Kindergarten,” (Sarah Mervosh, July 31, 2022), explains how elementary school teachers are so desperate in the wake of Uvalde and other school shootings that they’re planning to learn how to use firearms to bring with them to the classroom. 

   Is this the kind of preparation God has in mind for teachers and students – or for anyone? Because I’m Presbyterian and I’m familiar with what Presbyterians are doing, I’ll refer you to the opening affirmation of an overture proposed by the Presbytery of Chicago at this year’s General Assembly (2022) of the Presbyterian Church (USA):

“We remember that the disciples ask Jesus when he saw them in faithful ministry and he answered, “As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). In our country 40,000 people are losing their lives each year to gun violence. Each one of these represents to us the crucified Christ, as do their orphans, their grieving parents and families, as do the nearly 100,000 who are injured and the countless others who are traumatized by gun violence through suicides, murders, family violence, and accidents; In faithfulness to the Prince of Peace, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) stands with, grieves with, and calls for change alongside the victims of our uniquely-American epidemic of gun violence.”

   The overture goes on to commend groups, businesses, and individuals already active in opposing gun violence, and calls “upon every congregation in the PC(USA) to prayerfully consider their role in helping to prevent gun violence. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, ‘Everyone can do something.’” The overture further points out “The sinful, historical intersection between guns and race.” The history of gun ownership is too often a means for white people to “protect” themselves and their families from perceived threats from black, brown, and native people, creating a culture of entitlement to gun ownership that is born out of racism, white supremacy, and violence. You can find the entire overture here: https://www.pc-biz.org/#/search/3000776. I suspect other denominations, other churches, are wrestling with this as well. 

   “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Do not be afraid, because God wants what is good for God’s world, for all of us, for the whole creation. What a promise! In the face of gun violence, and in the face of all our other fears, it is the promise we lean into. It is the promise that motivates us to get ready. Soelle writes, “The nearness of God cannot be measured in intervals of time, but must be measured in the strength of the hope which is spreading among people.” 

    The nearness of God must be measured in the strength of the hope which is spreading among people. The strength of that hope is evident when, as Dr. King put it, everyone is doing something. Being prepared, being ready, means doing something. Doing something won’t magically dissolve all our fears, but we can be brave and afraid at the same time, and by doing something, by leaning into our trust in God’s desires for all of us, we really do chip away at our fears. As Harry Emerson Fosdick said, “Fear imprisons, faith liberates; fear paralyzes, faith empowers; fear disheartens, faith encourages; fear sickens, faith heals; fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable; and most of all, fear puts hopelessness at the heart of life, while faith rejoices in its God.”

It’s never worked for me just to tell myself, “Don’t be afraid.” But I can lean into the promise that God has something much better in mind for the whole world. That helps. And I can get ready by doing something. That helps, too.