18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, RCL)

The psalms are poignant. They bear emotion in a way that grabs our souls. They are comprehended by the heart in a way the head can’t.

But I falter when I try to preach them.

“There is the danger of protecting ourselves from God by striving to be passive. The ‘I’ is very active in its attempt to surrender.”

Snow can be tiresome, even deadly, but it can also be a sign of holiness and of hope.

We all live out our lives in the wilderness.

What is manna? Is it a Hebrew pun on mah hu, or as Everett Fox suggests, “Whaddayacallit”? Is it mountains of sweet insect excrement, as proposed by some scholars, or the stuff of legend?

Psalm 51 does not let any of us off the hook—not the progressives, the evangelicals, or the feel-good agnostics.

It is the day after Jesus fed the 5,000. The picnic is over and Jesus has taken his disciples to the other side of the lake. But the crowds of people who shared the meal with him yesterday and who then tried to turn him into their king are not about to let him go.

As Christians, we are joined together, responsible for one another’s Christian walk and well-being. Paul talks about “one body and one spirit,” so when someone we know is in trouble—some metaphorical fuse is burning in his or her life—we’re there for that person, praying, talking, listening and helping. We “bear with one another in love,” with “humility, gentleness and patience.” Of course, it's easier to describe that kind of fellowship with good religious words than to actually pull it off.