reflecting: Ephesians 6:5-9

The resurrection and work.

This connection is not, at least to me, as readily apparent as the things we’ve been focused on up to this point.

Easier to see how Jesus rising from the dead might represent a fundamental shift in the way we conceive of ourselves (identity) or others (community). It might even spur on a new way to talk to each other (psalms, hymns, spiritual songs) (kind of the ANTI-Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, instead of sealing us down because of traumatic event, it opens us up following the most pivotal positive event in human history!).

But work? What’s an empty grave got to do with work? Or maybe more importantly, how can we say that things are different when they don’t look like it?

Servants, respectfully obey your earthly masters but always with an eye to obeying the real master, Christ. Don't just do what you have to do to get by, but work heartily, as Christ's servants doing what God wants you to do. And work with a smile on your face, always keeping in mind that no matter who happens to be giving the orders, you're really serving God. Good work will get you good pay from the Master, regardless of whether you are slave or free. –Ephesians 6:5-9 (the Message)

This passage puts forth, with painful realism, that the revolution caused by Jesus’ resurrection from the dead might not look like much at all. Wouldn’t we expect Paul instead to say something along the lines of, “Slaves, you’re no longer slaves anymore, forget about what that guy’s telling you to do,” or “Masters, you should be ashamed of yourselves, don’t you know this way of doing things is done for?!”  

Instead of totally flipping over the social tables though, the resurrection does something maybe even more subversive here. The resurrection changes the terms. It teaches us that living into the miracle (if there ever was one!) of Jesus leaving an empty tomb, might (and probably won’t) mean leaving your job to pursue a sexier (and presumably holier vocation), it probably won’t mean telling off that boss of yours, or becoming your own boss. It (gasp) might not even mean going to seminary to learn how to be a professional God-lover.

Working in light of the resurrection is instead going to entail a lot of the hard work of service. It’s going to be a new perspective on the same old thing, seeing everything, every moment as an opportunity to demonstrate the kind of world that Jesus’ risen body sets up and anticipates. It shows off the fact that living only comes through dying, and that God is faithful and able to raise the dead, to heal what’s broken, and to bring about peace, justice, and restoration even in the darkest and most unlikely places. Oh, and maybe one of those places is where you punch a clock.

preaching: Advent I: Hope

Sermon text: Isaiah 2:1-5

Stream it from the Gathering Church site or subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.

Download a Reading Plan and Devotional here: http://www.allgather.org/advent/.

Check out the upcoming 'Christmas Nights' record here: http://www.allgather.bandcamp.com/.

preaching: Coming Home (Prodigal God Wk 6: Luke 15)

Stream it from the Gathering Church site or subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.

NT Wright/Andy Crouch/Rob Bell at Duke Divinity School

Here's the agenda:


Friday, Oct 8 | 3:30-5
Goodson Chapel


Revelation and Christian Hope: Political Implications of the Revelation to John
(with C. Kavin Rowe)


Monday, Oct 11 | 11-12:30; 2-3
Page Auditorium

The Living Witness:

Tradition, Innovation, and the Church

Tuesday, Oct 12 | 9-10:30

Page Auditorium

The Living Witness:

Tradition, Innovation, and the Church

Tuesday, Oct 12 | 2-3:15

Page Auditorium

The Living Witness:

Tradition, Innovation, and the Church

Hickman Lecture

review: Megafaun/Fight the Big Bull/Sharon van Etten/Justin Vernon live @ Hayti Heritage Center

Originally Published at The Blue Indian on September 27, 2010.

We settled into the back pew of Saint Joseph’s AME Zion on a Friday night quite aware that we were in what used to be used as explicitly sacred space.  What I’m not sure we immediately realized, but understood soon enough was that we were there for some sort of revival.

Walking into an empty sanctuary, my eyes sweepingly moved from the elaborate crown molding and ceiling installation to the old balcony hanging close and low enough for the preacher to receive some of the overflow: either rote, fanned air or spontaneous, dripping Hallelujahs! They panned down to the anachronistic contraptions cluttering the stage and the wires pouring into each and every of the 46 channels of the house soundboard.  Then they wandered around what, on this occasion, is  a congregation made up of hipsters, no more or less distracting than the usual Sunday gang, though with get-up constituted of rimmed glasses, beards, and half-sleeve tats rather than pin-striped suits and ornate hats.  An odd “Who’s Who.” Notably, but not exhaustively, filled with Mountain Goats and Rosebuds.  A vast array of the NC Triangle’s best, looking oddly out of place, not because of the ecclesial surroundings, but rather because of their bizarre idleness.  A Friday-night sabbatical.

Finally, hosts/cogs/chief kids-in-the-candy-store, members of avante-folk group Megafaun, took the stage to an anticipatory applause and then sheer, holy silence.  The intro song was a fitting tone-setter for the night.  Armed with a washboard and empty hands made for clapping, the Cook brothers and Joe Westerlund interpreted the old Green Sally Up for new ears.  That was to be a theme for the night: interpretation.  Alluded to and matched only by the other pervading theme: collaboration.  Mumbling, self-deprecating, and assuredly sober, de facto emcee Brad Cook mentioned of the set of songs taken from the box set of Americana standards and obscurities compiled by Alan Lomax, “We found these songs together.  We want to share them with you together.  Here’s how we interpret them.”

As the night wound on, the backing band, Fight The Big Bull, from Richmond VA, not only textured what the Cooks had in mind, but created an entirely new world.  And praise the Lord that they did, because this realm featured some truly special moments and characters.  We saw Bon Iver front man, Justin Vernon (just “Vern” that night…) transfigured before our eyes: from brooding cabin-fevered freak-folker to bolo-tied, Most-Reverend-Al-Green, tambourine man in numbers like Calvary and I Want Jesus to Walk With Me.  We witnessed guest Sharon Van Etten offering her sweetly eerie take on the onomatopoetic nursery rhymes of Almeda Riddle, reminiscent of Natalie Merchant's handling of Woody Guthrie’s set on the Mermaid Avenue discs.  She pulled and tugged at her black slip dress until the bawdy Coll Water Blues slid throughout the late summer evening.  The two combined for a Book of Revelation recounting in Tribulations that yowled truthful tales of dragons and blood baths in a familiar David Rawlings/Gillian Welch idiom.

The climax of the night was one the cool crowd seemed not ready or fully equipped to embrace.  What grew to a critical mass of thirteen musicians on stage at one time lead the “congregation” in shape-note singing and evoked claps, stomps, hallelujahs, and aisle-dancing.  Between the band’s extensive brass section, lead by a spectacular muted-trumpet and the singular percussive madness of Westerlund’s seemingly bottomless box of noisemaking accoutrements, unwarned, Mardi Gras (or maybe Pentecost) fell upon Durham, North Carolina.

But, just when our tongues were loosed, it was over.  They were gone.  Or so it seemed, until a last-gasp encore yielded a choired reprise of another group of “Northerners attempting a song about the South”: Robbie Robertson’s The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.

Though, perhaps the most touching moments of the night weren’t the ethereal or transportive performance moments (which were bestowed in spades), but rather the also abundant, candidly earnest glances and smirks between the players; telling in their incredulity and unadulterated joy.  They spoke of a certain danger (“is this happening?”), but more so of surging delight (“this is really happening!”).

I am thankful to have taken all of this in: the sacred intimacy furnished by the hardwood pews to the blessed verity of the sounds that swept through the aisles and filtered up to the balcony.

processing: Summer 2010 Reading (I)

For The Beauty of the Church

Ed. David Taylor

Since meeting a popular songwriter we hosted in college and being told to check out Steve Turner's Imagine, I've maintained a detached interest in the merger of theology and the arts.  As my theological mind has expanded, so too has my appetite for this intersection.  Duke's (by way of Austin, TX) David Taylor writes and edits this wonderful volume replete with talented and interesting authors and a panoply of perspectives.  Besides Peterson, who can hardly do wrong by me, I was surprised, edified and provoked by John Witvliet Worship piece (I look forward to thinking about original songwriting & worship with some amazing songwriters in our community) and especially Jeremy Begbie's musing on Art and Eschatology.  I highly recommend this to anyone who's ever even considered the role of art in the life of the Church.

Practice Resurrection

Eugene Peterson

The capstone to his prolific Spiritual Theology series, Peterson embarks on a thorough and serious treatment of growing up, being the Church, and living in terms of the resurrection existence Christ inaugurated, as articulated by the letter to the Ephesians.  I really appreciated how constructive this work was.  While providing harsh and prophetic criticism towards the failed and unfaithful ways we North American Christians attempt to build, progress, and grow, the tone and timbre of the whole matches the exciting, creative, and counterintuitive character of the great biblical letter it explicates.

Resident Aliens

Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon

About halfway through this book I really began to resent whoever chose our entrance reading requirements a couple years ago for Duke.  While Dean Well's Power and Passion was somewhat helpful, I can't really think of something else that could provide such a succinct and challenging primer to how things are thought and done at Duke than Prof. Hauerwas' and Bishop Willimon's landmark book.  I might have spoken louder, earlier, and more often in some precepts had I tackled this one prior to the summer before my final two semesters.  Spanning ecclesial ethics, the dangers of no-holds-barred modernism, and introing a Yoderian, post-Constantinian vision, these two master communicators also realize the importance of both eschatology and worship for the life of the Church in the world.  This work begs to be engaged with and achieves the provocation the cover advertises.

The Prodigal God

Tim Keller

I was really excited to dig into this one.  The final parable in the Luke 15 series has always been one of my favorites to read, preach, and re-evaluate.  This fall at Gathering Church, we're looking to focus on Keller's take.  His dealing stuck me as a bit unique, devoting a lot of space to the consideration of the older brother in the story (and going on to portray Jesus as True Elder Brother), going as far as to interpret him as but one of a couple of Lost Sons in the story.  I liked the accessibility and intrigue created by this.  It seems it will be a great entry point for those without a ton of study and small group experience as well as those, who know the story well.  It also made me go back to last summer's read: Volf's Exclusion and Embrace, to re-visit his brilliant exegesis of the characters within this keystone parable.  One main gripe I have is the  over-villianization of the Pharisee character in the story.  While I don't deny the teeth the the story has towards that crowd, the NPP-reader and Mel Gibson critic in me cringes at the careless portrayal of Jews as the epitome of flagrant unfaith.  All this said, I'll return back to Prodigal God (no spoiler alert: prodigal means extravagant, excessive) quite a bit more as a resource.

Deep Church

Jim Belcher
Anyone looking for some sort of positive assessment of the messy tangle encountering evangelical(-ish) church-life to come, should pick this one up.  Belcher offers an accessible and erudite survey of the landscape and painstakingly critiques and offers a way forward (which he, following CS Lewis coins the deep church).  This "third way," for him, is rarely a synthesis of the other two poles, though Belcher possesses all the charity, skill, and machinery to form such syntheses.  Belcher instead looks and, more often than not, finds a true new way.  This way of Orthodoxy and Engagement, truth and warmth, set-apartness and engagement must be the way forward and the type of leaders needed for such a grand endeavor must be committed to ecumenism, creativity, and generosity.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It accurately mapped and widely conversed un order to generate a gravitational vision around the Triune God in community.  Well done.

preaching: Interrupting Our Story: God's Covenantal M.O. (Gen 12)

I had the chance and privilege yesterday to preach at the Gathering Church in Mark's stead.  Because we're in the middle of a sermon series considering the Christian life and mapping where we are with God, combined with this great season we're entering filled with weddings and baptisms and new starts: I found it only fitting to take a crack at communicating how God does things in the midst of all this and what that means for us.  If we're trying to walk with God and be conformed to the likeness of Christ, we better take consider how God operates so that we can appreciate it and imitate it.

It was a blast to plan and prepare the service.  Brett Harris & Co. lent their wonderful talents to a beautiful set of hymns and spiritual songs that preached, better than I could ever hope to, God's covenantal faithfulness to us throughout history.

Here's a link to the podcast on iTunes.

As always, I'd love and appreciate any feedback.

Johnny Cash: The Revelator

Resources for presentation given in Dr. Hays' Revelation Exegesis class.

Download the Powerpoint.

Download the Handout.

When The Man Comes Around J.R. Cash  (American/Lost Highway/Columbia 2002) Spoken: And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder: One of the four beasts saying: "Come and see." And I saw. And behold, a white horse.  There's a man goin' 'round takin' names. An' he decides who to free and who to blame. Everybody won't be treated all the same. There'll be a golden ladder reaching down. When the man comes around.  The hairs on your arm will stand up. At the terror in each sip and in each sup. For you partake of that last offered cup, Or disappear into the potter's ground. When the man comes around.  Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers. One hundred million angels singin'. Multitudes are marching to the big kettle drum. Voices callin', voices cryin'. Some are born an' some are dyin'. It's Alpha's and Omega's Kingdom come.  And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree. The virgins are all trimming their wicks. The whirlwind is in the thorn tree. It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.  Till Armageddon, no Shalam, no Shalom. Then the father hen will call his chickens home. The wise men will bow down before the throne. And at his feet they'll cast their golden crown. When the man comes around.  Whoever is unjust, let him be unjust still. Whoever is righteous, let him be righteous still. Whoever is filthy, let him be filthy still. Listen to the words long written down, When the man comes around.  In measured hundred-weight and penny-pound. When the man comes around.  Spoken: And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, And I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death. And Hell followed with him.

Revelation 6:1-2a “There's a man going 'round taking names (taking names)/He's been taking my fathers name/an' he left my heart in vain/there's a man going 'round taking names” (Leadbelly) Gen 28:12 Jn 1:51 Mt 27:7 Also: Mt 27:9; Jer 19 Mt 24:31 Also: Rev 1:10; 4:1; 8:13 Rev 1:8, 21:6, 22:13 Job 38-40 Mt 25:1-13 Paul’s conversion in Acts 26 Rev 22:11 Rev 16:16 Lk 13:34 Rev 4:10/Rev 7:15/Mt 2:7-12 Rev 4:10 Rev 6:6 Revelation 6:6a, 8

Johnny Cash Playlist

Further Listening: 

American Recordings (I-VI)

Unearthed (Box Set)

Personal File

My Mother’s Hymn Book

Live from Folsom Prison

Further Reading:

Johnny Cash, Man In White (Thomas Nelson, 2008).

Johnny Cash, Cash: The Autobiography (HarperOne, 2003).

Antonino D’Ambrosio, A Heartbeat & A Guitar: Johnny Cash and the Making of Bitter Tears (Nation Books, 2009).

Leigh H. Edwards, Johnny Cash and the Paradox of American Identity (Indiana University Press, 2009).

Michael Streissguth, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece (Da Capo Press, 2005).

Steve Turner, The Man Called Cash (Thomas Nelson, 2005).

Dave Urbanski, The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash (Relevant Books, 2003).

Further Viewing:

Gospel Road (1973)

Walk the Line (2005)

The Johnny Cash Show: 1969-1971 (2007)

preaching: The Shape & Sound of Resurrection (Mal 4)

Here is my second sermon for preaching class.  My first sermon started Lent, this one concludes Lent and anticipates Easter.  I went for it a little by using music (the Welcome Wagon's rendition of the preaching text).  I also tried to improve my delivery, there's still much work to be done.  I had fun with this one.  Let me know what worked and what can be improved, I'd love feedback...

The Shape & Sound of Resurrection (Mal 4) by cebreslin

April Fools & Holy Weak

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. (1 Corinthians 1:25)

I hope the irony of April Fools’ Day and Maundy Thursday coinciding hasn’t been lost.

Though, Maundy Thursday may strike even the most ardent churchgoer as the junior varsity of Holy Week activities, it may actually hold the key to the whole week.  Sure, we all know: Friday=Cross, Sunday=Resurrection (chocolate bunnies, special outfits and hats, peeps, etc…).  But what about Thursday?

Maundy comes from a Latin word for mandate/command.  This refers to Jesus saying, “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 13:34) .  This statement, of course comes well after Jesus interrupted a nice dinner with his palls, tied a towel around his waste and got on with the washing of the feet.  Foolishness.  Weird stuff.  At least Peter thought so.

Jesus explained himself by saying, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”  Perhaps the best summary for the whole of Holy Week.  Foolishness that later comes to make sense in light of Sunday.  We later come to really see that foolish weakness overcomes conventional wisdom and strength.

Peter didn’t understand the foolishness of what Jesus was doing.  Frankly, neither do I most of the time.  Jesus patiently uses this as a teachable moment saying, “If I am your Teacher and Lord and I wash your feet, do this to each other.”

Think about how silly this would be for us.  “You mean you want me to drop everything and getting down to the dirt of where someone has been?  You’re kidding me.  You want me to clean feet?  No way.”  Jesus shows us a foolish type of friendship and asks his friends and us to follow suit.

I wish these two “holidays” coincided a bit more often.  It might make it a bit easier to remember how Christ’s wisdom looked like foolishness, how his strength looked like weakness, and his victory looked like defeat.  The shape of his very life, looks on first blush, like death.

I pray that we really embrace this call to be holy April fools, that we take on this free and costly life.  That we see strength in apparent weakness.  That we get comfortable under the table doing this foolish work of friendship and service.  Amen.

Original Gathering Church post.

preaching: To Be A Good Note-taker (Rev 10)

Here is my first sermon for preaching class. It is Lenten-themed and inspired by my study in Revelation this semester and enjoyment of Eugene Peterson's insights (Reversed Thunder, Eat This Book). I would appreciate any comments, feedback, and constructive criticism as I seek to hone this daunting and beautiful craft of preaching.

To Be A Good Note-taker (Rev 10) by cebreslin

processing: Preaching, Praying & Paying Attention

The other day in preaching class we explored the link between preaching, praying, & paying attention. We heard from this beautiful poem by Mary Oliver (The Summer Day) which she manages to move from pondering the psalm-like wonder of created-ness to the child-like fascination with a particular bug and a particular fleck of sugar. I wish I had a more immediate link in my brain and worship between praying, paying minute attention, and falling on my face, "idle and blessed." Let this be the case with "this one wild and precious life." Amen.

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean--

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is is you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

Advent Week 3: Here Comes the Sun Again

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter

Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun

and I say it's alright

We managed our second George Harrison song for worship at church within the last month this past Sunday. It was fun singing "Here Comes the Sun" (and no we didn't opt to change the U to an O, to make it more holy), and the mood correlated well to both the atmosphere of Joy as we lit the pink Candle on the Advent wreath and the joy emanating from the children and families as we had our first Child Dedication.

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun

and I say it's alright

While I'm not involved in any way with producing the music, which is great and done brilliantly by Jeff and his merry men (& occasionally women), I am involved with worship planning. Thus, I must apologize. Not for the song, I stand behind the song for this week and this season. I apologize instead for my failure to communicate how this song accurately depicts what is happening during Advent. It was not merely picked to satiate some sort of Abbey Road void or be that kitsch-factor for an upstart church without a lot of rules (though it probably accomplished both). So I apologized if it appeared novel for the sake of novelty or cool for the sake of coolness.

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,

and I say it's alright

It's alright

It's rare that we can sing a worship song using "little darling" with a straight face, but I think we can her. Far from being a merely sentimental bit of (as my high school history teacher used to put it) froth, this delicate affection comes to us from God in a time of cold, darkness, sadness, and despair. God, the 'Lifter-of-heads', then comes and whispers affectionately to us in our hoping and waiting, "Little darling...here comes the Sun...it's alright." This isn't something only the Beatles knew, but is actually the modus operandi of God throughout the history of his relationship to his people. Our job in during Advent (which can be woodenly translated: 'the arrival of a notable person, thing or event') is to not lose hope, and above all, to remember the cold, dark winter before Christ came initially as the Light of world & in preparation and expectation for His second coming in Glory.

To this expectation I share Matt Ward's brilliant addendum:

Kingdoms and queens they all bow down to you,

Branches and ranch hands are bowin' too

And I've taken off my straw hat for you, singing

Here comes the sun again

The leaves on the trees they all call out your name,

Chrome on the freight line shines the same

And the stars in their cars roll their tops down for you singing,

Here comes the sun again

Oh but if you're gonna stay show some mercy today

Blow a little breeze on my face

Snow banks drift down the hillside for you,

Slides inside sandy river before the day is through,

And before evenin' falls I may find myself there too, singing

Here comes the sun again

Isaiah 60:1-5, 19-21 (emphasis mine)

1 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes all around, and see; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be carried on the hip. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and exult, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.

The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified.

Lord, give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Make us an expectant people, hopeful and comforted by you. Light us, warm us, grow us with your presence. Amen.

Here Comes The Sun - Nina Simo...

Here Comes the Sun Again - M. ...

Advent Week 1: Hope

“Learning how to wait as a people of nonviolence in a world of war, you’ll know what Advent is. Advent is patience. It’s how God has made us a people of promise in a world of impatience, and Christ has made that possible — for us to live patiently in a world of impatience.”

Come, long-expected Jesus. Excite in me a wonder at the wisdom and power of Your Father and ours. Receive my prayer as part of my service of the Lord who enlists me in God's own work for justice.

Come, long-expected Jesus. Excite in me a hunger for peace: peace in the world, peace in my home, peace in myself.

Come, long-expected Jesus. Excite in me a joy responsive to the Father's joy. I seek His will so I can serve with gladness, singing and love.

Come, long-expected Jesus. Excite in me the joy and love and peace it is right to bring to the manger of my Lord. Raise in me, too, sober reverence for the God who acted there, hearty gratitude for the life begun there, and spirited resolution to serve the Father and Son.

I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, whose advent I hail. Amen.

praying: on All Saints Day

Mary-born Lord, humble us so that we also might say, "Let it be with me according to your word."

We are tempted to will our way to humility because we just do not trust you with your creation.

Someone has to make this world come out right. Thank you for surrounding us with your saints, whose lives remind us what your work looks like.

Your saints are a funny lot- weird and wonderful. They often make us laugh, Sarah-like, and through laughter we discover humility.

God, it is wonderful to be made a part of your entertainment so that the world might be freed from sin. Amen.

(taken from Dr. Hauerwas' Prayers Plainly Spoken: "Your Saints Are A Funny Lot")

praying: on the Feast of St. Michael and all Angels (from the BCP)

The Collect.

O EVERLASTING God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order; Mercifully grant that, as thy holy Angels always do thee service in heaven, so, by thy appointment, they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For the Epistle. Revelation xii. 7.

THERE was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

The Gospel. St. Matthew xviii. 1.

AT the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell-fire. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

processing: Psalm 96 (in Peterson's 'The Message')

Sing God a brand-new song! Earth and everyone in it, sing!

Sing to God—worship God!

Shout the news of his victory from sea to sea,

Take the news of his glory to the lost,

News of his wonders to one and all!

For God is great, and worth a thousand Hallelujahs.

His terrible beauty makes the gods look cheap;

Pagan gods are mere tatters and rags.

God made the heavens—

Royal splendor radiates from him,

A powerful beauty sets him apart.

Bravo, God, Bravo!

Everyone join in the great shout: Encore!

In awe before the beauty,

in awe before the might.

Bring gifts and celebrate,

Bow before the beauty of God,

Then to your knees—everyone worship!

Get out the message—God Rules!

He put the world on a firm foundation;

He treats everyone fair and square.

Let's hear it from Sky,

With Earth joining in,

And a huge round of applause from Sea.

Let Wilderness turn cartwheels,

Animals, come dance,

Put every tree of the forest in the choir—

An extravaganza before God as he comes

As he comes to set everything right on earth,

Set everything right, treat everyone fair.

*Photo is a copy of the speech of Saint Paul at Mars Hill in Koine greek. There is, to me at least, remarkable resonance between the polemic of Psalm 96 and the apologetic of Acts 17. The gods of the nations are idols but the Lord made the heavens! Your god is hypothetical and made by human hands, the Lord is the real and life-giving Creator and re-Creator. Hallelujah!