Disciple Bible Study 15, Psalms part III

But very different kind of psalm, I think, from what we've read the last two weeks, which have tended to be a little more um maybe challenging, mournful.

There's a this the big word is there's some impregatory psalms which are like um accusatory.

So not just how are these different, but maybe the question is what what did reading these psalms of praise and assent and thanksgiving, what did these do for you?

Um were there were there ways in which they um complimented or irked you?

Were you drawn to specific phrases in any of any of the ones we read?

So that's our big general question.

Well, one thing is um the Hundred Psal is something that my mother had us write out.

And um as enjoyed one serving that some comforts for the song, it brought back a lot of pleasant um memories about how important she was in my thing.

Did did you grow up Episcopalian, Kathy?

Yes, because you knew that if you do morning prayer, you will do the hundredth psalm every day.

It's called the Jubileh.

Yeah, we had morning prayer every service except one a month.

One a month before 1976, right?

So you would have prayed this particular one every Sunday.

Yeah.

Thank you.

When we got to that, I got the King James out.

I think I like my first one.

Because that was the one that I that we memorized, and some of more of the songs we memorized, but only the King James version.

It was just more familiar with the word.

Yeah.

But these were uplifting and easier to understand.

And yes.

Did they capture more of my feelings?

They did.

Yeah.

You you in general have more of these feelings more of the time than the okay.

Yeah.

I I love the the the praising of nature because I I I was a long-distance cyclist for many years, and the best times about being on the back of a bike is what what God put out there.

Whether it was raining, it didn't matter.

It was more um, it was so uplifting, and it was a sense of just being out there that and I'm doing long distance dangerous, long distance stuff.

Never felt scared, and it had to do with being out in the just knew that's all gonna be alright.

It always was like an accident stuff worked out.

Yeah, so several then uh reference to the creation, uh especially um uh especially uh Psalm 104.

And I and I and I also wanted to have Psalm 102 record of Israel.

So they must have come right out of the door, I guess.

Or reflections upon, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um yeah, I think the whole thing about nature I think I use nature because I get up in the morning and I just feel like all you know, you just step outside or there's like some little bird thing, or you know, some little bottom is flying around around the theater.

Some some little thing, and it's just it's so small, it looks so around you.

I I saw that the other day I looked at that.

I'll say that again.

Lost I think about 135 fee birds over here.

And that's how that's how you were thinking about the fishing.

And that's really laugh because it has such a small narrow.

Yeah.

But I think places like the Great Barrier we could swim in.

I saw the dead parts of the back before anything on the well that's an interesting touch point that I think our manual tried to make for us is this emphasis on creation is also supposed to guide us to an emphasis for being better stewards of it, right?

Uh, which is sort of interesting because um we're all, you know, I I if it's okay to say there's like two parts to this natural bit.

Like there's the inspirational part of just diversity and beauty, and then there's the part we often gloss over, which is that wolves kill lambs, and that is natural, and usually something that we are not inspired by, quite honestly, is like predators.

Um, so there's there's that bit, and then um there's this interesting part of us that I think we struggle with, in which we find um the outside to be, of course, like fresh and invigorating, and we want to maintain it, but are often unwilling to bear the cost of that.

And so uh this is an interesting thing.

When I got to Texas, um another ex-Californian said, you know, like Texas is gonna get to you because people, it's so big, people just throw everything away.

Uh and I have to pay to recycle, and I'm not convinced that the recycling actually gets recycled.

I think it might actually just get thrown away by a different truck.

And the recycling we do anyway, I don't know if you know this, we don't recycle recyclables, we ship them to China.

Um and there was a study about the environmental impact of recycling, and it was a net zero.

Except for metal, because that gets in the ground and corrupts the groundwater.

But glass, I mean I sure thought glass would be easy to recycle.

You know, I remember when I was a kid you could buy a soda in the grocery store, drink it, and put it back and get your deposit.

We got rid of that because it's one health concern in a bottling plant ever.

Uh, we totally, totally quit that.

Um, I know I'm rambling a little bit except to say I think that like engaging the environment, it's one thing to talk about doing it, but none of us, I'm just looking around the room, none of us really purchase according to that inspiration.

I mean, I I I look in the parking lot, I know, I know what car I drive.

I drive the most fuel-efficient vehicle there is, but mining the battery for that is so destructive.

I mean, it's strip mining, and it's basically a blood metal, like a blood diamond.

So, you know, I I I don't know how to win, is what I want to say, and how we interact in Psalms appraise of that is a really interesting thing.

I mean, it's one thing to say, God, we love that we love all this beauty, and then to be unaware of how we're contributing to its demise.

It's an interesting thing.

Anyway, they they take their recycles.

Uh they take their recyclables and and they clean the ocean that way, and they take it all and melt it down, and then they make little islands in the water, and they they uh put grass in it, and they plant plants and things of that sort, and it's growing, and the birds now are coming to make their nest there, and so they like they clean up the ocean and then they build a place for the for people to enjoy and animals to be safe.

Uh you know, so there are all kinds of things that can be done.

We don't have the leadership to help us get it.

Yeah, there's a little thing you can do in home though we compost, we've composted for years, which means that we have to well happen, the composting goes back into our bed.

Yeah, so and that really helps to we don't use any fertilizers because everybody garbage plants can do that, but it is it does have to become a choice, it's just it's hard to take time, it takes a little time.

I think it's hard.

The songs were written in Israel and then two or three thousand years ago when their universe is very narrow.

Uh I I don't see how we can make a leak from there to where we are, as far as taking care of the environment.

They didn't have a lot to kind of throw away.

Okay.

They didn't have glass, they didn't have all the stuff we have.

So how we how we redefine that.

I think the scale is a lot smaller, and so is the technological ability.

I mean, consider before we came up with weapons of mass destruction, that we really didn't have the power to destroy the planet that we have now.

I mean, that's that's one of the differences with with you know splitting the atom.

On the other hand, um, you know, uh we read about lions in the Hebrew Bible.

Apparently, they're lions were indigenous to the area.

Now there's none.

And that happened during this time that the species were eradicated by human expansion, which is irrelevant, I mean, corollary.

There used to be trees, but when you chop them down at a rate faster in which they can grow, they don't naturally replenish, right?

I mean, so so that is one of those things.

I don't mean that the desert was a forest, but um the cedars of Lebanon are not really to be seen any longer like they were here.

So I I do think in some ways, um, concern for things like carrying capacity is here, and maybe the switch from praise that I think is really important that I missed as a as a young person is to go from from praise to inspiration toward um more accountable and sustainable living.

So I should just tell you as an evangelical, we would sing praise songs, but then honestly, um I wasn't, I mean, I don't know that I am any more better now.

Uh I'm more self-critical now.

I wasn't a nice person.

So we would sing these praise songs in church, and then we just weren't nice, you know.

And um I and I I this is one of those things I worry about with religious leaders, and I'm sorry, he's dead.

God have mercy on his soul, and I think God will.

But like Jerry Falwell was this religious leader who was extremely hateful with what he had to say, you know, and I and I find that to be um, you know, at the time I sort of thought, well, if you're right, if you're right theologically, that's what matters.

And instead, like maybe there's this focus on righteousness and um how it is that we bring praise to God.

Do we just do that in a song and then our everyday ethics don't matter, or does actually God prefer the ethics to the song?

You you you know what I mean?

And I don't know that it's one or the other, but it seems like what the book's trying to give us to think about environmentally is that this that this praise and wonder really should um somehow inform what we do every day.

You need a pen?

I don't think so.

Uh uh this is like a nervous tick that I do.

So I you know, I it's one of these hard things because um I used to compost and recycle everything.

In Germany, when we first lived there, there were five recycling bins, and there was a joke that you needed that for a tea bag.

There was one for the paper, one for the staple, the compost of the bag, the string went into the trash, and there's something about the envelope that you needed another thing.

And if Germans saw you putting it in the wrong bin, they were absolutely militantly angry.

Um, in in Seattle, where my wife lived, if you threw things in the trash that you could have recycled, you paid a fine for that.

Um, even simple things like the carts in the parking lot.

If you wanted a cart, you put a$2 coin in, and if you wanted your coin back, you returned the cart.

Now you may say that's not environmental at all, but it actually is.

See, when you when you think about it.

Um that happens at all in growth.

Of course, which is a German-operated deal, right?

Yeah, yeah.

It's only a quarter, it usually was.

Yeah.

The recycling companies, uh, there have been many articles that they're not making a profit because they're they don't have the technology to even though you're very adamant and very careful about using your recycle can, and we don't have I don't know whether we pay extra or not.

Anyway, we do very convenient.

You do.

And that's fine.

We you'll we're glad to do it and we haul it off if we were unable to just put it in the can.

But um they're going out of business because they don't have the means to and then it then they have to have people to sort it out because other people put things in there that they shouldn't have.

Absolutely.

Um the Chinese have stopped taking on recycles.

Yeah, that just that's it's a little this past year, I think.

So this is uh I mean, this is an interesting thing, right?

And we have this illusion.

And and sor I mean, I still recycle, I do.

I still put it in the bin, but it's a net zero.

And this is, I mean, I think this is really, really hard.

And and to be honest, I think it's because we don't I mean it's just cheaper to throw stuff away.

It's cheaper.

So that's what we do.

You know, you mentioned something that's interesting.

If let's say we had this um nuclear holocaust and um we all were killed.

We all died.

Um and in time, uh, life would re-establish itself.

I'm not advocating it, don't misunderstand me.

But my point is, in a way, we we live or have lived in a very small period of time when you're looking at in geologic time.

Not just geological, but but uh universal, big uh, if if indeed we believe in the Big Bang Theory, Big Bang Theory of Bang.

And I wonder sometimes if we're just an experiment, a gods experiment, trying to figure out how to create a world that um is uh is a way to actually um um do what we should do to uh to survive amongst one another.

It seems to me like um, although there is a book out that says things are better today than ever been in the world, uh in the history of the world, but still, I wonder about that sometimes.

And at what cost I mean yeah, let's say you had a nuclear congregation, the half-life of the nuclear uh atom that's created still has a half-life.

That's right.

And in time, it'll decay.

It'll decay.

A long time.

Yes, yes, but what's a long time?

Yeah, in time.

Right, yeah.

But you know what one point you along with that, you know, the responsibility that we have.

Jesus teaching is that we if we are uh become like him.

In other words, yeah, we believe a lot of facts, but do we live those facts?

Do we practice?

Do we practice and do we become what we believe?

And I think you know, people are so busy now with all the things of keeping up with what the world's doing that they don't have to have time even to think about it.

I think that is you can get overwhelmed with these thoughts, just like taking care of the poor.

Yes.

So when when that happens, you I have to focus on I can do what I can do.

Yeah, that's what I can do.

That's how anybody because it you just become you know overwhelmed and then you can't do anything.

Debilitate.

Yeah, it almost paralyzes you because you're like but I focus on composting, recycling as best I can has been offered to me.

Buying a car that's sort of responsible.

Battery problem is just never gonna go.

Yeah, I mean it just with this really simple thing, and I'm guilty of this because I have Amazon Prime.

Uh when I want something, I order it.

And it might be possible that I order three things in the same day instead of bundling my order, because I just remember, like, I need to get that.

And so what happens is that it arrives in three different boxes from three different carriers with three different inflatable bags.

And um boy, if I just well, I pop them and I put them in the recycle bin.

What if they have the triangle?

That's okay.

But you know, there's so much that doesn't.

It drives me crazy, I have to say.

It drives me crazy to put stuff in the trash.

Oh, same here.

I mean, I think every time I put something in the trash, I think that's going underground forever.

Yeah.

And it drives me nuts.

Well, and I and I don't, and I don't, um I was a good composter in California and I don't do it now.

I give my chickens my scraps, um, but I don't give them my used depth coffee.

So I, you know, like I think maybe the thing is it is really easy to get overwhelmed with the fact that I can't solve the problem as an individual, and am I making a contribution or not might stop me from doing anything.

And I and I do think there's some sort of truth to the starfish poem that we've all heard that it's important to try, even if it doesn't make as big of an impact as you'd like, because it's about what we put in and our awareness.

And and I hope that the book, their connection is if we really are interested in this outdoor beauty, then then we sort of need to be a little more invested in it.

You know, I I I mean I think that's probably a good a good corollary, is we need to be invested.

Um I think you you have to just accept, and to me, there's just so much you each of you can do, and you live that way, you pass it on to your kids, and you never know whether they're gonna really do it or not, but you talk about it and they know how you live, and or your friends or whoever.

And that's really it in terms of I guess there's nothing else you can do.

If everybody, if each person is doing what they can, which is all that God expects of us, you put all of that together, right, and a lot of things do have to start happening.

We may not know what the end result is, right?

But you know, when we do our part, we're making our contribution.

And maybe it doesn't look like a whole lot, but you put a whole lot of little things together, you get making.

And maybe it's very naive or child or naive just to say that here's a group of people that probably are doing all of the right things.

All over to me, I think all over the world, there's small groups of people that are doing the right thing.

I mean, I gotta believe that.

If I don't, you know, they'll slash my wrist.

I don't slash okay.

No, we don't want to just do it.

And pass it on to your kids and your grandkids and yeah.

I will say my daughter and her fiancation, I mean, they are like they'll tell you they're not zero waste.

You know, Robbie and Olivia, but they I mean they every bag they take to the store is filled with glass jars.

They um they they live an amazing lifestyle, but I will tell you it's not a lifestyle of convenience compared to today's world.

They get mocked for a fair amount of, you know, but they don't care because they're they're very thick skinned.

Um but they really really I mean um they're very healthy.

They're vegan, they cook, they're not like vegans who like eat potato chips, they're vegans who eat real food.

Those are made from vegetables, maybe.

Well, yeah, but I mean it's it's a lot of thought and a lot of work.

And I watched them, it took like a good year of breaking habits that had, and they were living with us, and I would go to um make the coffee, okay, and I would go to dump the grounds in the trash can, and they they would say, no, no, no, no, in the compost, in the and it, and it really, you have to change your whole way of, and we particularly in this country, I believe, are so into convenience.

And what's gonna make our day go faster?

If I can, you know, I I don't know, but I I'm really impressed with them because they kind of decided, well, you know, I mean, they're to the point, now they're young, 21 and 22, that they feel like it would, and and I've heard a lot of kids, I call them kids, but at this age, they don't want to have children because they feel like this world is already so overpopulated.

Now they will probably have many children that they, you know, fine.

Um but I I'm really impressed with them, and I and I feel sometimes when I'm talking with them like they're the adult, so I'm the child.

Because especially the generation I grew up in, all this new stuff is coming out to make especially make mom's life easier.

But when you look at how much waste was involved in all that new stuff that was making life more convenient, you know, um, so it's there are people that that really want to leave, you know.

I I think it would be impossible at this point to leave zero carbon footprint, you know, but they're trying, they're really trying, and God bless them.

I mean, you know, I'm lucky if when I go to the grocery store, I remember my list.

Never mind my bag with jars, my bag with the small jar, you know, it would just be like you gotta work at it.

But a few things about that, and then and then we should transfer over because we're we're doing maybe a lot of eco.

I used to be young, and uh when I was young, when I was young, I got a little on a little drifted toward extremity, and so I bought these.

Um I was a member of community supported agriculture, so I bought a box from a local farm every week, and they grew what was seasonal, and there was a lot of lettuce in there and radishes, and you know, I ultimately I stopped because I started getting like nine daikon radishes the size of this cup every week.

Hard bird.

Uh not I mean they just sorry, it's just not really scrumptious, and uh, we would get five cabbages and the amount of methane that that would produce in our home.

It just was prohibitive.

And to be honest, um boy, I used that whole box because I was too cheap.

I was too cheap to to buy it and not use it.

I didn't give it away or anything.

So, I mean, we ate that stuff.

I I was putting cabbage and macaroni and cheese and um everywhere, and so I guess that was really healthy.

But what I found is that it actually started to create a hospitality barrier between me and other people.

They started to be afraid that we couldn't eat at their house.

I was afraid of what they were serving because eating canned food was like it would make me sick because everything was fresh, and my and I had relatives who only bought canned food.

So essentially we couldn't eat together.

Yeah, and they didn't want to eat what I was making from I don't know why, but because I'm probably because of gabbage and um so that was a thing, you know?

And um boy, I got these wild ideas because I didn't buy meat from I still didn't buy meat from the store.

I think it's disgusting.

But I will say it's an inconvenience thing, you know.

So I buy animals live, and not everybody has a deep freeze and wants to do that.

And I'll tell you what else happens when you buy a live animal.

Um, you look at it and you feel sorry for it, and and then you eat it.

And I actually think that's sort of right.

But you end up with these cuts of meat you don't want.

I mean, I don't want an O-bone roast.

I'm sorry, it's not good.

And I don't care how much you braise it, it's just not good.

Um, and so at the store, I don't have to get an Eau-bone roast.

What do they do with that?

They probably make McDonald's hamburgers.

I, you know, like that's probably it, and other people eat that, but there's a there's a cost to that stuff because the truth is, right, a filet mignon, you know, I love that cut of meat.

You get like nine of those out of a steer.

Nine out of a steer.

Just think about that.

Nine out of a 1200-pound animal, that's what you get.

So you start to like figure that out and also realize that cost, and then again, there becomes this trade-off where we can be so diligent in pursuing eco-justice that we lose community.

And how we how we balance that I think is really, really tough.

The other thing that's interesting in the Psalms that it's really easy to skip over is things like praising God for making the sea monster.

Well, listen, there aren't sea monsters.

I just we there's just there's not those, okay?

Maybe there's Nessie.

Um, but Nessie doesn't seem to be like eating folk up.

You know, Nessie seems okay.

But they're, you know, and and the lions look to God to be eaten.

So I do think there's this opportunity to think instead of like, oh, the majesty, just just the majesty of the beautiful lion.

I mean, lions eat stuff.

And um, and it's messy.

And there's animals that I don't like.

Instead of sea monsters, I mean, maybe I need to think about the mosquito.

Um thank God for the beauty of the mosquito.

I don't know, but I but I do think that's one of those things is instead of thinking about pristine mountains, to think about bogs and bayous and ants.

You know, I mean, I I I it's easy to think about those things, but the question is, are we able to praise God for all of ecology, even parts that are just icky and muggy and inconvenient?

I mean, I think that's another invitation.

Take kids on tours through Island Bayou, and I said there's nothing that wants to eat you out here except the mosquito.

Yeah.

You may kill the mosquito.

Yeah.

Um that's just how about outside of our natural bits?

And by the way, thanks for that conversation.

I think it's a good one.

I mean, again, I think it's one to keep maintaining, and and again, how it is that we choose to glorify God when it's hot and when it's cool.

You know, I mean, I think those are those are good things to remember.

Maybe that just is a choice that uh the ecosystem is beautiful even when it's not convenient for us.

I mean, I think that there's something interesting to meditate on.

Um, what else did you find in the Psalms of Praise for you?

I think of it as not being like that obvious in in that I I thought about that last writing.

And I'm just thinking about my career.

And there's times in my career that bad things happened because somebody was really at the end of the day really jealous for what you were doing and and they were more superior than you were, and they couldn't come back and push you.

And I lost a couple of jobs because of that.

But I you could go on because Dorothy Wells.

She died a couple of years ago.

This woman had it really, really because it was a long, it's a long terrible story to all of us have professional stories like that.

But anyway, a dear, dear friend of mine sent me, I got this envelope from Roger and I opened it up, and it was a the obituary.

Dorothy Wells had died.

And pretty sad thing about how she went about.

Turns out she's wasn't my age.

I didn't even realize she was the same age.

And uh it was just I just I didn't mean to, I don't think I was I was happy with that.

Oh wow.

I didn't do anything back to her.

I didn't do I didn't prepare and I just left the district and went on.

And it was revenge.

And that's just one example.

I think I think you just trusted God.

You had no other choice.

You know, I think there's a way to think about it.

Instead of that we as moderns have changed, I think in some ways we um some folks have changed and some haven't in terms of how we read God's way of interacting with people.

I mean, I I know folk who do think that God is actively intervening and turning wheels left and right in the world.

And and I'd say some of those folk wrote some of our scriptures.

And I know some other folk who think that God is present and willing, but that people essentially are driving and they choose to listen or not listen.

And it's sometimes I feel, I actually feel both ways, you know.

Uh in a broad brush, I think you could say, you know, um, hey, um God was behind the defeat of Nazism.

When you could you could make that argument.

It's really the question of what you choose to believe.

And and you could choose, I think, to say that God physically turned the wheel against the Nazis, or you could say, hey, listen, God's presence in the world inspired people to listen to God and turn the wheel against the Nazis.

Do you know what I mean?

I think you could you could see it either way that you chose.

I I think one of the things, Tim, that we and I can't speak even for we, I mean for me, I used to think God was much more interventionist in the world directly.

And now I I think my faith has changed to where um God intervenes by inspiring and compelling people.

That's the way I think of it.

But I I didn't know that one way is actually less active by God than the other.

I mean, I I and I think this is an invitation theologically to think about like where is God when someone is being raped.

I mean, that's to me the hardest one.

I mean, in some ways harder than murder.

And um, and and I sort of, I guess where I came to rest, I don't think about this problem actively, but I sort of think God is there saying stop, stop, stop, stop.

Instead of making it stop, God is actively trying to get people to listen.

Yes.

That's the way I kind of believe if I really think much differently.

You might.

It's interesting.

I mean, I I I I I I read this book, uh, and this is a this is a feminist theologian who talks about how tough it is in instances like that.

Like, where's God?

And it towards the end of the book, she sort of says her deepest spiritual event was when she was raped.

And it doesn't mean it was okay.

It doesn't mean it was okay, but she went back and sort of said instead of God being absent, actually she decided God was present in this moment of victimization.

And a little bit, I guess, the conclusion I just sort of offered you, it wasn't that God is there to take away our suffering, but God is trying to guide us out and try to guide perpetrators out as well.

The question is, do we choose to listen?

And this is part of our wisdom course, right?

I mean, again, we could say, God, why do you allow this and this and this and this?

And I told you there's that cartoon where Jesus is funny.

I was going to ask you the same question, right?

I mean, so I think that the the truth is, I don't know that anybody lives in a pure worldview one way or the other.

I think we find ourselves often mixed up.

I mean, sometimes, like I've run a red light before by accident, and I've said, thank you, Jesus.

Now, listen, I'm positive Jesus did not take the police away at that moment.

That's silly.

But I actually think in some ways that's what the Psalms of Praise are doing.

The Psalms of Praise are saying, like, I've been delivered from the natural consequences of my choices miraculously, and I choose to be grateful for it, and I direct that praise or that gratitude towards something higher than myself, which is God.

And then they also do the same thing not only for themselves, but for the state of Israel too.

I I think that's right.

I think that's right.

And of course, this is where I think we get into this double bind I mentioned last week, which is we could praise God for what happens in America and somehow confuse that God's an American, or we have this invitation to consider the rest of the world as well, right?

Um So I think that sort of becomes a really interesting way to think outside of ourselves and make sure that our praise is not limited to what supports our interests, but what supports things like dignity and justice and righteousness and ecology in the world.

Well, you know, when uh things happen, I like to do that right exactly.

I don't know whether God did that or not, but I think anyway.

You know, because it's the most important thing, I think, is what is our attitude to our God.

We don't have to be a hundred percent right at a time.

But um but the thing is this you know, but so you so you know God is God, God is great and wonderful and all these things, but um so just thank God anyway, it'll give you points.

Well, that's a good thought, and you know, um I think we're actually at a natural turning point to keep on that way um because the book mentions something else, not just ecology, but in salvation history and care for the oppressed.

There was praise for that, and specifically um Psalm 146 says something like Um, the Lord sets the prisoners free, the Lord opens the eyes of the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous, the Lord watches over the strangers and upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked God brings to ruin.

It's a really strong psalm about God's justice for people who are oppressed.

Remember what the book said is if we praise God for making human beings and fashioning us in God's image and likeness, then it's really hard to look at somebody who is oppressed and not be concerned about them.

The principle is if we resist dehumanizing the stranger and the widow and the orphan, if we resist that, uh then it's hard uh to it's hard to cooperate with systems that oppress them.

Story and then um theological uh question for you.

You never know sometimes uh when your parents tell you stories if they're apocryphal or real.

Or you may know, I don't.

So my dad has a number of stories that he's told me from his experience of Vietnam, and I'm positive many of them are apocryphal, but this one I think might actually be real.

He said when he got there, uh one of the first things they did was put everybody like in a chain link fence enclosure and told them to wait for orders.

And in the middle of the enclosure were all kinds of beverages, particularly things like beer and coffee and tea, and it was as much as you wanted to have.

All of those things are diuretics, and after two or three hours, people needed to go to the bathroom.

But they were in the enclosure, no restrooms.

And somewhere about an hour into it, my dad said they put some Vietnamese women and children around the perimeter.

Um so you know that the enlisted guys were not going to urinate in the middle of the enclosure.

They'd have to step in it.

So essentially, can I you tell me if this is true or not?

Um, but eventually one person turned out and urinated in front of these women and children.

And then many other people who had been waiting and holding did this as well.

And my dad said this was the army teaching us to dehumanize Vietnamese women and children so that when we killed them, we would feel less guilt.

I had two brothers who are in Vietnam and they didn't experience that.

Yeah, I mean, everyone's war experience is the same.

I've actually told that story from uh the pulpit before, and I had one person really mad because that didn't happen to them, and then I had another person say, Well, I don't know about that, but my orders were to shoot people who were coming to the dump to get food because they were starving.

So we shot people on the way to the dump.

Um whether you believe that story or not, it sure is believable about how it is we we we deal with oppression, and one of those ways is we make the other less human than ourselves.

Obviously, you know uh from the same era that we didn't call those people Vietnamese, we called them chinks or gooks because somehow that's somewhat a little bit less.

And then when we have a stereotypical racial title, that's one way that we feel less bad about oppression.

I mean, this is really important, and sometimes we think that people group deserves it by being racially or religiously or ethnically inferior.

If you don't think that's happening anymore, I just will tell you think about the way that Muslims get treated in our country.

Well, they deserve it.

Of course, they don't deserve to be treated as second-class human beings because they have a different religion.

Well, they're all violent.

Of course, they're not all violent, that's one-sixth of the world's population.

But these are stereotypes that I mean some of us may buy on buy on to.

I don't know the answer to that.

I tell you, when I go to HEB and I see somebody wearing not just a Shah Dor but a burqa, I think it's weird.

And my gut is take the damn burqa off.

This is America.

Um and I'm like, Mike, why are you like that?

I should know better because I've spent a lot of time in those places, you know.

Um but the but these are these are these are bits that sort of happen.

And um what the book I think is arguing is if we can really uh praise God for fashioning human beings in God's image and likeness, then just like the earth, then we should come away with a different ethic of care for all persons.

And here's the theological interlude, then.

In seminary, you get to read all kinds of books, and of course it's great to read books that you don't agree with or that you've never read before, because the point of an education, right, is to learn more about what you don't know.

And one of the classic books we read is a book called God of the Oppressed.

It was written by a professor named James Cohn in the late 70s, and essentially what James Cohn wrote is that Jesus was born a Galilean peasant, essentially at the bottom of the pecking order.

And um, therefore, and James Cohn turns out it's a black.

Man, he said, God is black with a capital B.

Jesus is black with a capital B because black people, men and women alike in the United States, are at the bottom of the pecking order.

And so the argument goes that God showed solidarity with the oppressed by being born as the most oppressed type in the day and age of Jesus.

And actually, that not only does God always have solidarity with the poor, but James Kine introduced this phrase called God's preferential option for the poor.

That is, God backs folks who are impoverished so that they can become liberated.

It's really tough theology because then you start to say God prefers poor people to rich people, which seems a slippery slope to me.

It seems like God prefers all people.

But this sort of theology is out there and it showed up in Latin America in a strong way, right?

In the Sandinista regime, it showed up, you know, Archbishop Oscar Romero sort of was into this, think uh Gustavo Gutierrez is another one, liberation theologians.

This is kind of what that gets called, is is God is sort of empowering liberation of people who are oppressed.

I think you can read Psalm 146 and see where that idea comes from.

But I just lay it out before you and see.

There was a book that I read in the courtyard EFEL, and I don't remember which one, but it was a collection, it was on theology, and there was a collection of stories of true stories, of short stories, of actual incidences.

And there was one related the story of a child whose family was very, very poor.

And he asked his mother why were they so poor, and she said, because God loves us much, loves us guys.

I read the liberation theology and I found myself beginning to find this up.

Because it kind of resonated with me in that yeah, I would yeah, I would like to see some of that happen.

Yeah.

And then I think comes back to what we just talked about, is God turning the wheels of history or is God inspiring people to turn the wheels of history?

And I think that becomes really, really important.

And and I I, you know, maybe this is because I'm white and male and middle class and American, but I I am drawn to Abraham Lincoln's phrase, right, that let's not ever pretend to be to have God on our side.

Let's hope that we can be on God's side.

And I think that's probably, but maybe that's because I'm not from an oppressed group, right?

I mean, I've never been arrested or pulled over for the crime of driving while black.

And in some in in a very alvinistic way, you are if if you are very successful, then you're being rewarded by God.

Right.

If your God rewards your piety with success, yeah.

And therefore, if not high is good, then you're poor.

And yeah.

I think the phrase for that is manifest destiny.

That kings are rewarded by God for their inherent goodness, which is why they're kings.

Yeah.

In my path for black people in their communities, God is very bright.

Because they had no one else really to really to rely on.

And that's how they got to their day, and how they endured their glories that were done to them.

And uh so uh I don't necessarily they may be God's favorite people because they have so little people that have we still have a lot of prejudice and so forth that goes on.

But we have a lot of poor people who really are poor and have difficulty helping themselves, and again there are also those like uh with the record of the mission from life and mama, uh, I learned that there was a way to dress.

They live in a nice home.

They dress or become and get the benefit of the recognition head of it, you know.

But then on the other hand, we have those people who are really, I mean, it's not a wannabe, it's just like their work, you know.

And those people are really relying on God, now they're those who are not, but the the ones that I work with, I mean, God was the center of their lives, and they praised Jesus, and they were good people and so forth.

And so we you know, it's just that I look at it this way.

God has one thing in mind for us, first and foremost, and that is God loves us, and God wants our love and return.

The second thing is that we are important here.

And in other words, there are you know, God rarely ever see God in a rain physically, but you do see people doing the work of God.

That's our responsibility.

And so that means that we need to build a relationship with God.

You know, where in our list of priorities is God right?

God should be at the top of the list, okay?

Because that's who we are going to be fully accepted.

But you know that but what you're saying is it's the people who do it who are doing the that God encourages or guides to do the good things.

So therefore, our relationship to me has to be with other people.

That we are, I mean, God is there, God will always be there, but it's about how we are with each other all everywhere, all the time.

Yeah, but what that relationship looks like is what comes to happen, what happens between us and God.

In other words, you know, there are people who go to church every Sunday, but they don't know what to say.

That's not just talking about, you know, God doesn't want to be a picture on the wall or somebody you turn to in his times of trouble.

You know, God wants you every day.

You know, and but little prayers throughout the day are setting a certain time of the day apart to be out of here, man.

Yes, with God.

Because God works on us and helps us change when we give God time, you know.

So I you know all this three of you if you're walking and working with God, then your life will change.

You know, it is important that we become what God wants us, created us to be.

And maybe the best mother you can be, with children, or it can be you know, whatever.

But the point is what is our personal relationship with God?

Nothing else really matters if we're not living there.

My my dad, I grew up Hispanic, middle, just working middle class in the 50s, when being brown was not a really great thing.

But my my dad said um said to me more than once, he said, forever, wherever you will go, you will, whoever you compete with, the likelihood is that you're not gonna get the job because it'll be a white woman or a white man who's gonna go before you.

But that's all right.

You just keep right on going, you lift yourself up, you keep on going, you keep you keep learning, you keep studying, and you will survive, and you can survive well and you will do good.

And I'll never forget, and it was really simple, he didn't put God into it, he just said it's about what how strong you are, how willing you are to be able to pay the price, whatever the price might be, without without what is the word destroying yourself as a as who you are, as who you've been raised to be.

You will forever be brown and Hispanic, and you'll speak Spanish, you'll be proud of it, and you just hold your head up and go.

You know, there's no doubt God wasn't able to that.

But I I don't know.

You know, I think the hard both end, and as a Southern Baptist I grew up, that evangelism was about getting people to heaven when they died.

So in some ways it didn't matter what their physical needs were.

What mattered is what happened when they died.

But you know, there's that Maslow's hierarchy, which says if you don't have basic commodities like food and shelter, it's really hard to think about your spiritual needs.

So I think there's this bit, right, where relationship with God is important, but apart from having your physical needs met, you can't really even deal with that.

So, like I think, I think, I don't think it's an either-or.

I think you're trying to say it's this both and.

Um, but but my sort of Baptist experience that I've that I really struggle with is privileging people's spiritual needs over taking care of them.

And um, I I I I think it's hard to read this because it says the Lord is watching over the strangers, but like 40,000 children are gonna starve to death this week.

And I sometimes I wonder if that's true.

Is that okay to say, you know, and in what ways that is?

So I mean a lot of times I think, listen, people come here all the time and they ask me for stuff.

Like, I need help with my utility bill.

Now, I don't know them.

Listen, they're not interested in coming to church here.

Um, I ask them how they found out about us.

I ask them actually, I need$400.

$400?

I live in a 3,000 square foot home.

I've never had a utility bill that high.

What are you doing?

I mean, are you eating your home with your oven?

You know, I mean, I don't I didn't make it easy, and part of me sort of thinks like God helps those who help themselves, you know.

Um, so in general, like I have this thought, like, okay, sure, you're impressed, you work hard.

We we just got this discussion from the from the bishop candidates.

We've got three candidates for bishop in Texas, they're all women, and um that might be intentional, but but one of them sort of said, thank God for the women who put themselves into jobs they knew they'd never get.

They knew they'd never get them because they're women, because by doing it, at least they made the committee consider that one day a woman might stand before them as their priest.

Boy, you know, I grew up with that kind of thinking.

But some people are debilitated by that reality and they can't even apply for a job they know they won't get.

In my thinking, you apply for it.

And I have very little empathy for people who look at jobs they can't get and don't apply.

Or for people who have just lost their job and they've gotten bills and they're not out scouring for work all the time.

I have very little empathy for that.

And what am I praising?

Am I praising people like me?

Or am I saying, God, you watch over the strangers?

I mean, I think this is a hard part.

These Psalms are are nice, but I think when we delve into them a little bit more, what can they, what do the words really invite us to do?

And and I and I and I and I don't know the answer to that again.

Is God really actively caring for the oppressed against the 3% or the 1%?

I I don't know the answer.

I mean, I don't I don't know the answer to that.

And Pasadena was the first Hispanic woman to be a, it was in 1994, so this was not that long ago.

First Hispanic woman to be principal in a secondary school, and there was this wave amongst the white males in Pasadena, they thought, oh my god, you know, it would, but anyhow, I but way back in 1956, my dad had said to me, you will, and you just have to apply for the work, you have to work hard, you have to, and and it it worked out that way, but but I just kind of laughed because all these other people in that town, especially men, white men, were just furious.

And but you know, I just kept going and I did my work and I did well and all that.

I wound up, I wound up having to leave there because it got to be way difficult and painful.

But then I went to HISD and wound up with the same kind of job except in a bicker junior high.

It's I I I don't know what the answer is.

I don't know what the answer is.

I but it it's a combination of you know God being there for you, you you just being a good person, doing the right thing, and sometimes not so falling your face and getting money having muddy notes.

Well, and I think part of it is incumbent upon us as a parish, I mean, even just at the local level, to think about what kind of people we would accept, accept as our spiritual leaders.

Now, I think we're a good group of people here.

I think that.

I do.

I don't know how the calling committee would have felt if they'd seen me in a tank top at the interview.

There was this hurdle, there was this hurdle, and um actually some folks, this hurdle here in my ears uh when we met.

It was not a hurdle for anybody in the committee, but it was for some people in the congregation.

Well, no, but say they didn't know about that.

And I can tell you, I can tell you because this is what I like about our people.

One of our people on the calling committee, they were nine, said, if I'd known you had that, I don't know if I would have advocated for you.

And I was grateful for that honesty.

But that's a really critical thing to think about.

Because at this point now, I think that person has had a reversal, but only because they got to know me.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And it always takes getting to know somebody.

So if I said, well, what if I'd been very up front that I'm gay?

I guarantee you I would not have been called here.

Guarantee you.

I'm sure you wouldn't have.

And I'm not saying shame on us.

I'm not saying you're right.

Our church wasn't ready for that.

I I I would tell you, I'm I'm still pretty sure we're not ready for that here.

I'm still pretty sure.

We're trying to live in to growing that.

But I mean that becomes really, really hard, right?

And so you think like when so you're you're an openly gay priest.

How is the Lord watching over you?

Just like everybody else.

Except their lives are different because of the prejudice.

But the psalm says God watches over the strangers and that holds the orphan and the widow and brings the way of the wicked to ruin.

I know.

I have trouble with that too.

Because I've, you know, but but on the other hand, I you don't know how God is working with that person either.

Well, and so maybe that's one of the ways that we have to interpret a psalm like this, even though there's cognitive dissonance between the way uh society is structured, maybe watching over it means that God is not going to get revenge by promoting them, but that the people we ignore are not being ignored by God.

Even though it feels that way.

And no proceed has been going to happen.

You know, it's an interesting story, can I say?

Um, did anybody know Flannery O'Connor?

Yeah, Catholic author.

She wrote this book, this thing.

I read this in the 11th grade.

It's called Revelation.

It's a short story.

If you're bored, if well even if you're not bored, you you can read it online, short story.

It's about this woman named Mrs.

Turpin, who's a good Southern uh lady, and she meets this um kind of ugly-looking girl in the dentist's office and has all kinds of judgmental thoughts and interactions with her, and then she goes home to her black help and um thinks about what a good woman she is to help these black folk.

And she has this vision of people going to heaven all of a sudden, and the ugly girl and the black folk are at the beginning of the line and she's at the end.

I mean, it's an interesting, interesting vision of Flannery O'Connor.

I mean, very, very that's Flannery O'Connor's way of writing, right?

Extremely jarring.

Um course, you know, in the Bible, this is good to know, uh, no one goes to heaven before anybody else.

Well, you'll find this when you read Revelation.

All the saints are sitting around under the under the altar of God, the Lord's table, saying, How long, Lord, till we enter to your family, and um the message is soon.

But no one goes, no one goes to heaven first.

Everybody goes together.

That's so there can't be a hierarchy in heaven.

Oh.

Well, it would be anyway, because some of our science is heaven.

In heaven, we don't go to heaven, heaven comes to us.

That's we'll read that too.

Yep, we'll read that too.

But I do think this is a tough bit, and I think, you know, I don't want to say, well, like, oh, at a certain point, God does care about everybody, but again, there's cognitive dissonance between how people are cared for.

And maybe part of this inspires us to think about how we would feel if we knew somebody was go ahead and lump them all together.

Would we ever consider a black, female, lesbian, pregnant priest for our next priest?

Oh Mike, that's too much.

It's silly.

The Bible is full of that kind of question.

Would we, what would we do for the most extreme thing we can imagine?

The parable of the good Samaritan is like that, right?

A Samaritan is like a cross-dressing gay person with AIDS who went to bathroom number two and didn't wash their hands, right?

I just have to keep lumping stuff up there.

Um it's interesting though to think about again, how do we even treat our church folk?

How do we treat our church folk?

And interesting, if we knew that about somebody in the pew to us, would we feel pity for them or would we feel compassion for them?

Because those are very different things.

Yeah.

I tell you, I have a lot of family members who are what I would call compassionate racists.

They really do feel sorry for those poor Mexicans.

I mean, that's the kind of language that you get.

But but then you see underneath that is this inherent racial hierarchy.

Yeah, and p feeling sorry is not a question.

That's I that's it.

So I wonder if this, I'm and I know I'm being real justicey again, but I wonder if in the midst of all this praise isn't the opportunity to say, how do we take praise to the next level and say, how do we come co-conspirators with God in upholding the orphan and the widow?

Because God cares about those people that are easy for us to forget.

One of the ways we use the Psalms in the Episcopal Church is on the prayers of the people.

So I don't know if you know this, but the way I grew up, there'd be a prayer every week by somebody in the congregation or by the pastor.

It was very long and meandering.

You never knew if it was going to be five minutes or ten minutes, and usually it was about whatever that person or their children was struggling with.

I can't tell you how many prayers about internet pornography I heard in college.

Um I'm sure God cares about that, but there's other things God cares about, right?

When we do the prayers of the people, there's a rubric.

The rubric has to include prayers for officials, whether elected or appointed, to pursue justice.

It has to include church leaders and for the church to function as one body.

It has to include prayers for the oppressed, the isolated, the degraded, uh, the degraded, sorry, the impoverished.

We must pray for those types, or we've missed something.

And that amalgamation of things comes right down to the Psalter.

Well, I think it does.

And I just told you this one, right?

The Lord sets the prisoners free.

The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.

So we're supposed to pray that that will happen.

But you're but they always have to.

I know it's a horrible place, but I mean Chuck Colson's one of these people, one of Nixon's top advisors, who did came out and started a lot of Christian ministries for prison.

I mean, I think the truth is prisons are about punishing people, not um not raising them up to be different folks.

And that's a really hard environment to be in, a place where you're being punished.

But I but I've got a friend, and and thank God he's a deacon because he makes the church look good.

He goes to prison faithfully, and that's his diaconal call.

And um some people really do form meaningful relationships places, and that seems good and right and and and praiseworthy.

And again, part of what I think the psalm is inviting us to do, if we really do say that God is invested in human beings, we need to mutually invest in human beings.

I think this is where praise leads us.

If we well and one other thought is if we think that God is invested in beauty, then we're supposed to invest in beauty.

Not in um not in beauty like um hair gel and in, you know, lip gloss and um eyebrow plucking.

Of course, presentation is never everything, but it's always something.

But finding, but finding God's beauty inherent in one another, is celebrating beauty through things I think like art and high musical aesthetic, you know?

I mean, make a joyful noise to the Lord and then play with a skilled hand.

We give both of those in the Psalms, right?

It's this is not supposed to be ugly, it's supposed to prize beauty.

And sometimes I think we we uh just one of my own personal journeys, right, is those smile train ads.

Have you seen those smile train ads?

It's the kids with all the cleft palettes.

And um boy, when I saw those, I thought this is shameless marketing.

What they're trying to do is get you to just throw money at that problem so you don't have to look at it again.

And I one day I stared those kids down because it like made my stomach sick to look at the cleft palettes of kids, and I thought, you know, I've got to look at those kids and find God in them with the cleft palette.

It was an interesting exercise because it worked.

And I I no longer felt like I should help those kids because they were ugly.

I felt like the goal is to help those kids because they're beautiful already.

And it it seems like that's an invitation from the Psalms is to find beauty in things like mosquitoes and widows and orphans who might be poor because they deserve it.

That's interesting to say that about Clef Powell.

I I did speech therapy.

So I worked with and I've seen and been around children, and that is hard.

That's it's hard.

But but you you you help them because it's cheap and they and they deserve it, not because they're lesser people until they get it fixed.

I mean, I think that's the the reorientation, right?

For$50, a child can now drink out of a cup.

I didn't realize it gotten that cheap before.

I mean, it's I mean it's it's it's minuscule to help to meet somebody's medical needs in a foreign country.

God has invested in there's two.

Oh, good Lord.

That's why I recorded.

You can come back and listen to Kathy.

It's probably was it minute, one hour and eight minutes that I gave you that nugget you wanted.

Yeah.

Um interesting thing, the most prevalent word used in the Psalms to describe God.

I told you this I think two weeks ago, is the Hebrew word chesed, H E S E D, which would be like the equivalent of the Greek word agape, and it means steadfast love.

I think agape is a good thing.

That's a very beautiful word.

Just a little man here.

I don't want to detract.

Uh, you know, last week I said that I would write a song for the right one, I'll be glad to read the one.

I'd be grateful to see it.

I'd be grateful to see it.

Thank you.

I wrote note my notes, I'm supposed to do it, and I I couldn't do it yet.

You know, I think there's points of rawness where like you think you're ready and the words still don't come to you, and then there's moments of inspiration where they do.

I don't know if if that's the same for you.

I did the same thing, and I thought, okay, just do it.

I I could I I just ran into this when you know that it could make that five days three years.

I would imagine.

You know, and then the next day I could add a little bit more.

And that's the process, and it's you can just follow the process.

You've got that.

Okay, now we've gone through three weeks of psalms.

How are we supposed to kind of put them all together?

I don't know that there's a supposed to.

I mean, I think actually what what they said in week one that I really appreciate is like the rest of the Bible, the Psalms offer this opportunity to really reflect on and give voice to all of life's experiences, some of which, frankly, are rapturous and celebratory, some of which are 50-50, some of which are like backhanded compliments.

Um, you know, I mean, like, God really help me, I know you will.

Sort of the I'll praise you when you help me.

Um, and and some of which, I mean, I don't know, I just I think I think there's this opportunity to realize sort of the breadth of scripture.

I think we spent really about a week and a half thinking about how often in worship, in corporate worship, we we tend to privilege the happy in some ways to our detriment.

And again, I don't know that anybody wants to come sing a dirge, but but the fact that we don't do that makes it really hard to say, oh, these feelings are normal to be disappointed in God.

Like that's a normal feeling.

And you know, there's the song of songs, and then it would be interesting if there was the dirge of dirges, because I'll tell you, like in my married life, I've been disappointed.

And um boy, if all we ever thought was, well, put on your happy pants, that makes the disappointment even worse.

Now listen, I'm glad I'm married, I'm grateful for it.

And I'm my life is better because of it.

But it's hard.

And I you know, the fact that there's not like an ode to the difficulties of marriage, in some ways makes it harder to give expression to that voice.

Like, oh my gosh, am I supposed to feel guilty that you know, like I get annoyed when I'm married sometimes?

And I think the answer is no, uh, particularly because we have these these bits of laments.

So, Tim, I I I I think we have options about how we choose to put them together, but what I appreciate about the Psalter is there's an inclusion of the whole experience.

Yeah, that's it.

That's the way that marriages, life, what it's all right.

So it's that's that's what's so beautiful about the well, and I didn't want to overdo this, but um to survive.

I'm a little excited about this, and you'll see it in the e-news today.

But um this Sunday is the story of Jesus doing the wedding at Cana.

Now, really opposed to what I grew up in.

There's only two weddings in the Bible.

The first one's terrible, that's where uh Jacob gets tricked into marrying the woman he didn't love.

Really bad parenting on Laban's part.

And then there's this one just obliquely referred to.

But there's not like lots of marriage ceremonies, there are like two.

And um so uh so um I sort of got this weird idea that uh since this is obliquely about marriage, um, we should give couples an opportunity to reaffirm their wedding vows in church on Sunday.

So we're going to do that.

If you're here, you can reaffirm your vows to one another just in the pew.

And it occurred to me, we don't ever do that.

I mean, we there's a form to do it privately, but you know, people are so loath to book an appointment with their priest.

They just are.

I've done reaffirmation of vows twice in eight years.

So I'm gonna do it a third time this Sunday.

And it occurs to me though, that it's something that we do corporately, and part of it is, I mean, this is what I love about the prayer book.

Give them grace when they hurt each other.

To confess and seek one another's forgiveness.

That's in the wedding rite.

It's in the wedding rite, you know, and not to be.

That's the one part of the wedding rite we get right, is that we pray, we know we're gonna mess it up, that we'll be reconciled, you know?

And I think Can I just act nicer for a day?

On your anniversary, you can be really sweet.

He can buy any oven he wants with your approval, of course.

If any of these women were at at church two two or three Sundays ago when you brought people come up for anniversaries.

Yeah, last week.

Was that last week?

Yeah, last week.

And and this yet little girl over there said, My my mom's, my mom's.

And you went over there and there were these those these women, the two women that you had married, and that would be.

I I didn't marry I did not marry them, but they got married one year ago up in town.

Oh, in town.

Okay.

I got I now they had the civil marriage longer than that, but they got the church marriage up there, yeah.

I thought that was a round of applause.

Well, good on you for telling on your on your on your mom's anniversary when they weren't sure which one to pick.

Yes, yeah, and yeah, it was it was really, really strange.

And those seem to be, I mean, uh this I think is what I'm trying to push for and trying to figure out, not just to do it for its own sake, but you know I just my church experience excludes so much of life to our detriment.

And and and this is part of life.

We need to include and celebrate, knowing that it's hard.

I mean, I I celebrate fidelity because it's hard.

It's countercultural.

I mean, it is.

See, and it's something we should be celebrating.

I don't know what the next thing we need to do.

Maybe we need to like bless our children and have our children bless their parents.

That'd be nice.

Um, they will do that at a certain age when they're very young.

Yes, now remember, bless can also be translated curse.

So I think they will always do that for us.

They will always bless our hearts one way or another.

But I but I Tim, I think that's how we use, I think that's how we use the Psalms.

And I think that the trick is to not ignore the breath.

I don't feel some of these wild, jubilant praises sometimes, but other times I do, and the key to remember is it's part of life and God is invested in life.

This week we did get to read like God help me get revenge on my enemies, instead of just you get it, me.

And that's, I mean, man, those feelings are real.

Doesn't mean we act on them, but if we can't be authentic in expressing our feelings, then we we lose part of life.

Uh next week, you're gonna find really light reading.

I mean, it's it's short, and they really want you to memorize the first chapter of John.

Um, that, of course, up to you.

But we will start with John next week.

So I hope you've enjoyed our little soiree through the Hebrew Bible and the Psalter, and uh look forward to seeing you next week.