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In Psalm 29, the writer proclaims with majestic confidence that God is greater and stronger than every form of chaos, and by implication, than every idol through which we imagine we can control the manifestations of chaos. God is victorious over the wildness of water, storms and wind. Even mountains and trees appear unstable in the presence of God’s strength.

In the midst of fierce weather, I don’t first think of God’s power and majesty. But unpredictable and destructive storms do remind me of how powerless we are despite our pretensions to, and obsessions about, control. Hurricanes and tornadoes can be devastating, terrifying and earth-altering, but the psalmist reminds us that the voice of God is even stronger. Surprisingly, after intense descriptions of God’s power in and over storms, the simple request of the psalmist is that God would bless the people with strength and peace.

"The voice of the Lord" is a recurring image in Psalm 29, and in that psalm, voice is associated with power rather than words. God’s power in and over all other forms of power frames our confidence in God’s final provision and care. Even when creation itself seems to be spinning apart, the Lord is able to give strength and peace. But even given all of its majesty and authority, God’s voice seems somewhat distant.

In Mark, the voice of God comes much closer and speaks more personally, yet it is still associated with earth-changing power. The voice rips heaven open and speaks directly to Jesus with words of treasured relationship, identity, commendation and delight. "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

Mark’s introduction to Jesus and his ministry is abrupt, urgent, and filled with Old Testament imagery and eschatological expectation. The story begins in the wilderness, a location full of complex meaning. Wilderness is a puzzling place of exodus, danger and judgment, as well as new beginnings, provision and grace. It is in the wilderness that John speaks words of warning and promise, and where people respond with confession. In the wilderness, Jesus is baptized and hears the voice of God. And then, by the Spirit, he becomes a sojourner deep in that wilderness for the next 40 days.

John’s voice is powerful; it speaks from the wilderness and points the people to the way of redemption in Jesus, who is more powerful and worthy than even the prophet to whom they were drawn. The people respond to John’s voice with confession of sin and baptism in the waters of Jordan. And then Jesus comes quietly and enters those same waters to experience baptism by John. Suddenly God speaks, ripping open heaven with a word of love and delight.

By our performance standards, it might seem a little early for Jesus to be commended as one with whom God is well pleased. After all, he hasn’t even started his ministry. We expect that commendations rightly follow hard work; words of recognition belong at the end of a project or performance -- after they have been earned. So how might we interpret this strange explosion of divine recognition and delight at the start of Jesus’ ministry?

At the moment of Jesus’ baptism, past, present and future, earth and heaven, are drawn very close together. Unfathomable choices had led to that baptism, decisions to "empty himself of all but love." In the midst of an act expressing the obedience and the sacrifice that would shape the course of Jesus’ life, ministry and death, there are words of delight and love. The words do not render the future easy; immediately, the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness for a long and difficult period. But the words do frame everything that follows. "Beloved" is both a first and final word about Jesus.

The word of love frames our identities and experiences as well. God’s love for us is neither episodic nor earned; it is a first and final word about who we are and to whom we belong. But the texts keep us from turning this love into something tame, convenient or fundamentally therapeutic.

The "voice of the Lord" in the storms of Psalm 29, in John’s words of judgment and promise, and in Jesus’ baptism suggests that presumption is a decidedly inappropriate response to our belovedness. This voice does not offer an "I’m OK, you’re OK" sort of assurance. This is the God of the universe whose words of love contain within them anticipation of what it means to be the beloved.

A friend of mine struggled for a long time with a reorientation of identity after coming to Christian faith. Highly successful in her previous work and gifted in many areas, she was also deeply wounded from prior relationships and betrayals. She struggled intensely with questions of love and worthiness even as she prepared for pastoral ministry. In a moment of exquisite theological insight, she went home one night, grabbed her lipstick and wrote "cherished" across the top of her bathroom mirror. She’d finally gotten hold of the truth that could frame her life, the gift of love that would bring freedom for growth, service and love. She was freed for ministry by blessing.

Many voices call out to us, demanding our attention and shaping our self-perceptions, life choices, interpretations of our past and understandings of our future. In the midst of all the noise and competing authorities, the voice of the Lord, a voice stronger than storms and mountains, breaks the heavens open to deliver a word of love. "Beloved" is God’s word for us.

After meeting Jesus, an excited Philip seeks out Nathanael to tell him they have found the one ‘about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." But Nathanael’s response is not very promising.

"Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" he responds skeptically It’s true: Nazareth was not much as a place of origin for a messiah. But Philip isn’t worried about the setting; in fact, he seems unperturbed by Nathanael’s lack of enthusiasm. "Come and see," is all he says. He offers no defense of Nazareth, just an invitation to a personal encounter.

As the account unfolds, the interaction becomes increasingly peculiar. Nathanael accepts Philip’s invitation to "come and see" but it is Nathanael who is seen. We might imagine that his skepticism offers him a certain protection, a sense of the upper hand, when he experiences an encounter with the unknown and the seemingly inappropriate. But whatever Nathanael’s thoughts are as he arrives on the scene, he immediately becomes disoriented. Bewilderment replaces skepticism. Jesus sees him and makes this strange comment about him: "Behold, here is an Israelite indeed, one in whom is no guile!" (no deceit). A stranger’s introduction does not usually include sweeping pronouncements about one’s life.

Nathanael is puzzled and responds, How do you know me? Who have you been talking to? Who has been talking about me? With an explanation that leaves the reader possibly more puzzled than Nathanael, Jesus answers, "I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you."

These words elicit a strong response from the truthful, though initially skeptical, Nathanael. Quickly abandoning his posture of doubting inquirer, he proclaims, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel." This response includes an equally surprising set of pronouncements for an introductory encounter. From where did this confession, this insight, come? Nothing but an encounter with the divine could explain their mutual recognition and this unusual interchange of knowing and being known, seeing and being seen.

In 1 Samuel 3, we find ourselves in the midst of another strange first encounter. As a very young child Samuel was given to God by a grateful mother and left in the care of Eli, a priest at Shiloh. Eli’s eyes, we are told, have grown dim, but it is not difficult for the reader to see that far more than Eli’s eyes are in trouble. In the previous two chapters, we learn that his sons are out of control, and have been outrageous and irresponsible with the spiritual authority they’ve been granted. Furthermore, we read that Eli’s spiritual perception is weak; he has mistaken Hannah’s fervent prayer for drunkenness, and now, in this encounter, he is slow to realize that it is the Lord who is calling Samuel.

While being mentored by Eli, Samuel is an attentive student and responsive to Eli’s requests and instructions. So when he hears his name called out in the night, the child runs to Eli in response. But Eli sends him back to bed and denies having called him. Again Samuel hears the voice, but Eli sends the child away with the same instructions. Samuel’s night is interrupted a third time; dutifully, though perhaps with more reluctance, he again returns to Eli. This time Eli recognizes that this is not just a young boy caught in some pattern of troubling dreams, but a child to whom God is calling. Finally Eli helps him respond correctly, and Samuel, the bewildered child, is suddenly given very adult responsibilities.

In contrast to the infrequency of visions and words from the Lord in those days (verse 1), Samuel is visited with both a vision and a message in a single night. He does not have adequate categories with which to interpret the call, however, so Samuel turns to Eli in trust, and eventually Eli provides the needed interpretation.

Samuel is soon to be established as the rightful bearer of God’s word and authority, one whose words God will not let "fall to the ground" (3:19). Now, as a child, he begins his development into a truthful prophet and priest by learning how to listen and respond. On their own, neither he nor Nathanael are able to interpret these strange encounters. Samuel doesn’t recognize God’s voice, and Nathanael is puzzled by Jesus’ inauspicious origins, and then by his extraordinary capacity to know and to see. But both of them are portrayed as truthful, and the childlike innocence in Samuel is reflected in a description of Nathanael as an Israelite in whom there is "no deceit." No cunning, no spin, no dissimulation, just a purity of heart that helps open their eyes to see God.

These two figures stand in powerful contrast to those in Eli’s household. Religious structures and authority have become vehicles of personal gain and pleasure for Eli’s sons. Gross abuses of their institutional legitimacy have resulted in a betrayal of God’s call and trust. Eli is complicit in this terrible betrayal. Although he retains sufficient commitment to help Samuel encounter God, inadequate attention to his own household’s disregard for God and contempt for God’s people will ultimately prove fatal.

Encounters with God are often unpredictable. They catch us by surprise, interrupt our regular patterns and challenge our assumptions. Samuel’s first experience of God’s call and Nathanael’s first encounter with Jesus are unsettling, but both open into promises of deeper relationship and greater vision. Skepticism and inexperience are not barriers when they are accompanied by truthfulness and transparency. Perhaps Jesus had Nathanael in mind when he later taught, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

The sins revealed in these first three scripture passages are blockbusters -- betrayal, idolatry, adultery and violence -- the raw material for larger-than-life stories and films. The Bible does not whitewash the sins of its major characters. Their awful failures and wrongdoings are part of the story, as are the human consequences, divine judgment and forgiveness.

On their journey to the promised land, Aaron and the children of Israel craft a golden calf and worship it, crediting it with their rescue from Egypt. Despite their close relation with the Lord/Yahweh and their previous promises not to make any idols, the Israelites turn to idolatry. Generations later, King David, in a moment of lust, calls for Bathsheba and sleeps with her. Then, finding her pregnant, he attempts to cover his sin by arranging for her upright husband to be killed. And Paul, an apostle and leader in the church, was once "a blasphemer, a persecutor and a man of violence."

Each of these passages describes a personal response to sin. Moses learns that his brother and his people have betrayed their God, rewritten their history and denied their identity. Still, he pleads with God on their behalf -- to remember the covenant, the promises and the work God has already done with and for them. Exodus 32 records an extraordinary dialogue in which Moses pleads and God hears. When David grasps the magnitude of his sin, he is overwhelmed (2 Sam. 11-12). Faced with the evil he has done and his betrayal of God, David repents, and cries out to God for forgiveness, cleansing and restoration.

In 1 Timothy 1 we are drawn into Paul’s amazement that God would embrace a person like him and call him into ministry. Paul, the persecutor of the church, the man of violence -- forgiven, transformed. He describes himself as the foremost among sinners -- and uses the present tense. Paul recognizes his own capacity for evil, his actual sin and the forgiveness he has received, and his words explode into a doxology. If God could forgive and find a place for him, than his merciful God could do it for anyone.

Because facing and addressing sin is never easy, we do our best to avoid coming to grips with it. Many of us rub off the roughest edges of sin and convince ourselves that in comparison to the larger culture or our favorite Bible characters, our sins look pretty small. Nothing outrageous, although fears, jealousy, greed, lust and arrogance do continue to pester us.

Just last week a friend of mine asked if there was anyone who consistently spoke truth into my life. She wondered whether I was careful not to surround myself exclusively with people who depended on me and thus were wary of challenging me. I was surprised by her question, but as I looked at these passages I was reminded of the importance of having a "Nathan" in one’s life. Each of us needs someone, or a small community, who will name what is going on and speak a word of truth to us when it is needed. Those of us in ministry can insulate ourselves from warnings and criticism by not noticing that the people around us feel indebted to us.

Many Christians today find it easier to talk about the structural dimensions of sin than to address individual wrongdoing. It is too personal, too pious and too intrusive to name another person’s particular wrongdoing as sin. When faced with our own wrongdoing, we often find ways to distance ourselves, to shift the blame elsewhere or to conclude that it somehow just "happened." But our unwillingness to face sin makes repentance irrelevant. And without repentance, there is no healing. At best we limp away or press on in the weak hope that things will ease with time.

There is no way to understand the depths of mercy and grace if we don’t recognize the capacity for sin within ourselves. Of course, there are risks. We can be buried by a "worm" theology, but our present danger seems to run in the opposite direction. With little sense of our need, we take God’s welcome for granted and have little appreciation for the grace that holds our lives.

Other troubles follow when we lose a robust awareness of sin. One is uncertainty about how to deal with the nagging guilt left over from wrongdoing that we bury, deny or ignore and the subsequent distancing from God that we experience. Another is a pious heartlessness toward those whose sins have found them out and who wear the consequences like a scarlet letter. Protective of our own precarious righteousness, we can only afford to see sin in others.

But what heaven sees when a sinner repents is a precious lost one who has been found. This is the wonder of Jesus’ parables in Luke 15 and the joy that is missed by the scribes and Pharisees who are annoyed by Jesus’ indiscriminate welcome to sinners. Tax collectors and sinners draw close to hear more good news, but the religious leaders grumble and note that Jesus is careless about the character and status of the people with whom he eats.

And so Jesus tells stories of lost things being found and directly connects the owner’s joy at their recovery with God’s pleasure as sinners repent and find welcome. Heaven rejoices when the lost are found. God’s steadfast love, the basis for Moses’ plea, David’s hope and Paul’s ministry -- these are available to each person because God’s abundant mercy continues to find us and make us new.

As a weekend gardener, I have discovered the deep satisfaction of seeing the fruit of a well-watered garden. Months of tending and watering yield a delightful harvest of well-formed, abundant produce. In contrast, a hot summer with little water yields plants that are shriveled and produce that is unusable. For a casual gardener the difference is distressing; for a hungry family, the difference can be a matter of life and death.

Isaiah says that those who live justly and who delight in God are like well-watered gardens, satisfied and strengthened by God in a parched land. Those who feed the hungry, help the oppressed toward freedom, and comfort the afflicted find themselves sustained by God. In a disconcerting way, Isaiah links doing justice with taking delight in the Sabbath, and being fruitful with finding joy in God.

The prophet warns that those who pursue their own interests -- trampling the poor and trampling the Sabbath -- may seek God’s attention, but will not find God present to them. Just as Isaiah recognizes that behavior on the Sabbath can’t be separated from behavior on the other days of the week, we recognize that worship and daily practices are somehow all one piece. Any split between worship and life, between piety and practice, is finally deadly.

But it is surprisingly easy to get this wrong and to shrivel up. We trample the poor and trample the Sabbath when our primary concern is our own gain. When our focus is distorted, we quickly become disconnected from the source of life and we shrivel like plants whose roots are injured. It is heartbreaking to see a shriveled garden; it is terrifying to see a shriveled Christian or a shriveled church. Examples are common enough -- individuals and congregations whose vision is no bigger than their own interests, whose personal agendas have displaced God’s bigger, scarier and less manageable purposes.

As we shrivel, pettiness replaces gratitude, peevishness displaces trust and delight. We are upset by minor inconveniences and we easily become indignant. We fail to see our own wrongdoing and are eager to assign evil motives to others. Even beauty and goodness become irritations. Like fretful infants who turn away from their source of comfort, nothing satisfies. We are on our way to death.

The scene in Luke 13 seems to be an enactment of Isaiah’s words. Jesus encounters a woman and sets her free from a crippling disease that has bent and bound her for 18 years. Freed, she stands straight and praises God. So what’s wrong with this picture? For the leader of the synagogue, this transformation occurs at the wrong time. Jesus is working on the Sabbath -- and in doing so, disrupting the regular activities of the synagogue.

It is easy to be horrified at a religious leader who becomes indignant because Jesus cures on the Sabbath. How could he be so heartless, so absorbed by religious concerns that he misses the chance to delight in a miracle? He is committed to protecting distinctive characteristics of tradition and identity, but is he also trying to contain a God of love and grace by confining God’s mercy and power to appropriate times and recipients? Is he a little too worried about his own interests so that, in the end, he tramples both the poor and the Sabbath?

A daughter of the covenant has been restored. By his words and action, Jesus places a socially invisible, physically broken woman in the center of the tradition that the synagogue leader is trying to preserve. Jesus calls the woman a daughter of Abraham, but the religious leader is indignant. Although comfortable about rescuing a farm animal on the Sabbath, he has trouble rejoicing when a bound woman is freed. But for Jesus, Isaiah, the woman and the crowd, the healing of the broken does not distract from delighting in the Sabbath, because it is a way of delighting in God.

It wasn’t wrong for the leader to want to protect the Sabbath day and worship from intrusions of regular work. But in the context of this miracle, the leader appears silly and shriveled; being indignant at mercy and goodness looks ridiculous. What is missing is a delight in God’s mercy, in Jesus’ power, in the Sabbath, in a restored sister. In attempting to protect what was holy, the leader misses a transforming encounter with Jesus, the Holy One. And in trying to protect the holy, he sees the broken woman as an intrusion.

Do we become indignant when God’s moves catch us by surprise? Are we in danger of confusing our interests with God’s? Do we see a needy person as one more interruption or as a child of God longing for freedom, restoration or healing? Do we trample the poor by protecting our piety from them or by always being busy with "more important" things?

Have our delight and our rest in God been crowded out by other concerns? It is certainly easy to make ourselves and our interests the focus of worship -- our feelings, experience, needs, even our growth. But worship is our corporate delight in God’s acts and character, our response to God’s grace and goodness. Psalm 103 and Hebrews 12 remind us of the centrality of gratitude in worship -- the importance of remembering God’s many benefits and delighting in the One who forgives, heals and redeems.

In The Fragility of Goodness, author Martha Nussbaum writes, "The peculiar beauty of human excellence just is its vulnerability." Goodness is fragile and its vulnerability is part of its beauty. But in several of these scripture texts, it is not the fragility of goodness that stands out but the sturdiness of righteousness. The psalmist proclaims confidently that the righteous will never be moved or forgotten. Psalm 112 rings with the joyful refrain that the righteousness of those who fear the Lord and delight in God’s commandments will endure forever.

That picture of sturdiness stands in contrast with the way many of us live. Worried about the future and our place in it, we are fearful of bad news and possible disasters. Our fears make us unsteady, especially when we try to anticipate contingencies. Anxious about future troubles, we fail to make the commitments that might enable us to endure those very difficulties.

The righteous, however, have hearts that are steady and firm. In scripture the righteous are gracious, merciful, generous and unafraid of bad news. Their hearts are secure in God. The righteous person is a risk taker who invites all the wrong people to a party and doesn’t worry about being seen with the right people. The righteous one associates with the weak rather than with the powerful.

Human virtues and interactions are fragile, but for followers of Christ they are located in a divine economy that is sturdy. When our security and identity rest in God, it is less difficult to choose the way of humility. Instructions not to put yourself forward in the king’s presence and not to worry about where you’ll be seated are not antiquated etiquette. They are teachings about faithfulness and grace that make sense within God’s larger purposes.

It is still scary to risk being overlooked. Maybe the king or the host won’t notice us if we’re not within view. If we don’t protect our interests we might be stuck in the backwater forever. Worse, people might conclude that we are best suited for a lower place. We worry about our significance, our reputation, our lasting impact.

But ironically, according to these texts, it is those who don’t worry about their significance and impact who will be remembered forever. Characteristics of the sturdy righteous are memorable -- their startling capacity to keep things in perspective, to live without besetting fears, to be willing to do the right thing and only later to worry about the consequences, to locate themselves and their own futures with those in need of help.

The description of the dinner party in Luke 14 makes me glad to have missed it. It could not have been very pleasant for anyone; tension is thick and almost everyone seems to be worried about the impression he or she is making. The religious leaders are watching Jesus and Jesus is observing the behavior of both host and guests.

It starts out awkwardly for the host when Jesus chooses to heal a sick person on the Sabbath. Bad timing. Then Jesus challenges the ordinary behavior of the guests, who are scrambling for a better place around the table. In the form of a story, Jesus reminds the guests of the wisdom from Proverbs about allowing the host to invite them to an honored place rather than choosing the best seat for themselves. His teaching, seemingly about table manners, is actually about the values of the Kingdom.

Then Jesus addresses the host and conventional understandings of hospitality. Don’t worry about your status and benefit when you welcome people, he says. Overcome your concerns about reinforcing useful or reciprocal relationships. Do something really different, Jesus suggests. Invite to your parties the people who seem to bring little with them. The blessing, recognition and benefit you are worried about will come, though not through the means you expected. They will come in a way that makes sense only if you see the bigger picture.

The freedom that comes with knowing we are loved and sustained by God is a freedom to give generously of ourselves and our resources, to give the best place to others without concern. Because of our confidence in God’s larger purposes, followers of Jesus can take risks and remain secure, welcome status reversals and live without fear.

When our security is located in God, in Jesus who is "the same yesterday and today and forever," we can deal with the unpredictability and the risks of seeking righteousness. We can show hospitality to needy strangers, spend time with prisoners and share our resources with the poor because God has promised never to forsake us.

In reflecting on people for whom the word "righteous" seems appropriate, I am reminded of the way the children in C. S. Lewis’s Narnia stories come to view Aslan, the lion. He is good but not safe. We too are free to be good when we are unaffected by social conventions and expectations that tame us and render us predictable and safe. We can take risks because our place with God is secure; we can bear burdens because we are upheld by God’s gracious hand.

Worrying about position and recognition will keep us susceptible to the latest version of status-seeking and a fear of losing our place. Such anxieties keep us tame, but we don’t need to settle for being tame when we can risk much more.

Recently several pastors and seminary students told me that they will do "whatever it takes . . . to be effective in ministry . . . to turn their church around . . . to work for the kingdom." While moved by their commitment, I worry about the moral danger they are courting and their seeming misunderstanding of kingdom "ways." I wonder if their passion for Christian ministry is being refrained by the instrumental, entrepreneurial drive of the business world.

"The end is preexistent in the mean[s]," wrote Martin Luther King Jr. in his essay "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence." When we fail to recognize the close connection between our goals and the ways in which we seek to reach them, we are in danger of losing those goals. We become comfortable with moral shortcuts and gradually conclude that small acts of dishonesty and minor indiscretions don’t matter when the purposes are sufficiently large. An approach to ministry bounded only by "whatever it takes" invites moral as well as spiritual disaster.

At the end of the parable of the dishonest manager, Jesus teaches that those who are faithful in little are faithful in much, and those who are dishonest with earthly resources will be untrustworthy with more significant responsibilities. According to Jesus, the small details matter. They set the pattern and structure within which we learn to handle the more substantial and eternal concerns.

Our relationship to "mammon" tests our faithfulness. Whether justly or unjustly acquired, various forms of wealth can become our master, shaping and filling our lives in a godlike manner. Particularly in this society, where consumption drives the economic system and where economic values shape even family and church decision-making, the idolatrous dimension of mammon is both ubiquitous and subtle.

We can use our resources and our access to resources to build relationships or to destroy them, to help people or to hurt them. Jesus observes that the children of this world often understand the significance of wealth better than those in the religious community do. Worldly people know that they can use resources to gain friends or to lose them, to make a place for people or to shut the door on them.

A virulent form of faithlessness is evident in the passage from Amos. Although engaged in their practices of piety, the people have little sense of the connections between their faith, their use of resources, and their relationships, whether with others or with God. Amos speaks a particular word of judgment to businesspeople who use their power within the system to pursue unjust gain and to crush those who are vulnerable. He is not addressing common thieves or criminals.

What makes their deeds especially troublesome is that these people appear to play by the rules and are able to maintain their place in the community by observing the religious and cultural traditions. Although their practices are profoundly dishonest and exploitative, the entrepreneurs wait for the new moons and sabbaths to pass before they engage in business. They take from those who cannot resist them, and they use the legitimate communal structures to get away with their exploitation. They employ standard units of measure but secretly distort them to increase their profits. They mix the sweepings in with the grain to make additional profit.

I wonder if those businesspeople were always destructive and dishonest or if they started out as responsible community members. Did injustice and dishonesty creep up on them -- perhaps as wealth became more and more important, or as they were less scrupulous about small acts of dishonesty, or as they discovered they could get away with it? Or perhaps they grew bolder when other people didn’t notice their corruption or couldn’t protest against it. But God noticed, says Amos. And God will not forget.

How we use mammon is a clear and accurate indicator of our priorities. While we might speak frequently of justice and compassion, it is what we actually do with our resources that expresses our deepest commitments. Perhaps our faithfulness might benefit from an occasional use of the "publicity test." Would we be comfortable if our friends and fellow church members knew the specifics of our decisions concerning money and resources at home, in business and at church? In particular, would we be willing to show our checkbooks and investment portfolios to a faithful, impoverished Christian in another part of the world? So much of our misuse of mammon is possible because our choices escape scrutiny. For most of us, what we do with our resources is a very private matter. Furthermore, rarely do we see such decisions as central to our piety or to our friendships with poor people.

The dishonest manager described in Luke 16 used his position to reduce other people’s debts so he could gain them as friends and assure himself a place at their tables. Jesus does not commend the manager’s practices, but rather his insight into the connection between resources and relationships. When we consider our wealth and economic practices -- even the means we employ to accomplish good ends -- as peripheral to the kingdom, we are ignoring Jesus’ warning that it is impossible to serve God and mammon. Unfortunately, we risk losing the true riches in the bargain.

In a culture that is deeply ambivalent about personal sacrifice, and often equates it with co-dependency or some other form of emotional dysfunction, Jesus’ challenge to "carry the cross" is difficult to hear. But then it probably did not sound appealing to the folks following him 2,000 years ago either.

In this passage from Luke, Jesus proposes some very troubling conditions for discipleship. We are asked to "hate" our parents, spouse, children, siblings, even life itself. How could One who had come to bring life offer such a deadly proposal? Jesus’ teaching must have surprised and confused the enthusiastic crowd, and quickly thinned out the ranks of his supporters.

Centuries earlier, Moses had stood with the children of Israel at the brink of crossing into the promised land and had challenged them to "choose life." Anticipating his own death, Moses instructed the Israelites in the choices that would bring them life and prosperity in a new land.

When the passages from Deuteronomy and Luke are juxtaposed, the intensity of their messages is heightened. Moses invites the people to "choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days." A vibrant relationship with God holds the promise of flourishing, prosperity and long life. By contrast, the future Jesus offers seems hard -- to follow him we must live as if we are anticipating crucifixion.

Is it possible to choose life and pick up the cross? Somehow both invitations are part of Christian discipleship. We worship a God of life, but mysteriously that life has costly sacrifice at its center. Choosing life is not necessarily about what feels good or makes us happy. And only in a very distant way is it about self-fulfillment. Faithful discipleship, according to Jesus, involves "hating" everything that gives us security in exchange for carrying a cross and following him.

Jesus is not talking about a literal hatred of family or life, but a transformed relationship to everything and everyone we depend on to define our identity. Discipleship involves a process by which we are re-formed within a different set of loyalties. Those new commitments can break the tight hold our prior loves and connections have over how we live.

Temptations to find our meaning and identity through family, self-fulfillment and possessions are strong. In an effort to counter destructive patterns in contemporary society, it is not difficult to turn the family into an idol. Past misunderstandings of the meaning of self-denial can result in an equally destructive focus on self-fulfillment. And it is very easy to allow possessions to dominate our lives.

The challenges to choose life, discipleship and the way of the cross are ultimately about where we place our allegiance. Moses warns of the dangers of idolatry, of the costs involved when we allow our hearts to be turned toward other gods that finally bring only death. We choose life when we love, obey and hold fast to God. Psalm 1 reminds us that those who delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night, are happy, blessed and fruitful. Their security is contrasted with those who, in turning away from the source of life, are as unstable as dust blown away by the wind.

But choosing life is difficult, and Jesus warns us to pay attention to the cost of discipleship. Short-lived enthusiasm lacks staying power. Counting the cost is an appropriate caution when we consider the number of people who begin important undertakings only to abandon them part way through. Whether buildings or wars, marriages or ministry projects, it is important to consider what we are getting ourselves into and the resources we can rely on. When we count the cost and still choose the path of life and discipleship, we are able to make a steady commitment that is then sustained by our connection with the source of life.

It might be easier if we could count the cost once, make the necessary sacrifice and get it over with. But the costs of discipleship are often ongoing, and faithfulness requires a tenacity that does not give up in the face of trouble and understands sacrifice in a larger picture that is richly life-affirming. While we might prefer to make a single dramatic sacrifice as an expression of our commitment, usually the way of faithfulness involves laying down our lives in little pieces, through small decisions and unremarkable acts of kindness and generosity.

As I write this, several friends come to mind. A love for life and a love for Christ characterize their lives. In response to a call to ministry, they have left security and close-knit family behind to work in parts of the world that are unstable and often dangerous. There, by word and deed, they share the word of life in surroundings of death. Clearly, they have heard and understood Jesus’ words.

Another friend has also responded to Jesus’ difficult call by leaving seminary to care for a mother who has Alzheimer’s disease. My friend had no idea how long her commitment would extend, but her mother’s short sojourns in nursing homes had not worked out well. My friend knew that loving God, caring for her mother, choosing life and accepting loss were all somehow wrapped up together. Her staying power has been remarkable; she has chosen life even as she acknowledges the substantial personal cost. The way of faithful discipleship sometimes leads us far from home, and in other cases leads us back home, into our closest relationships.

Jesus continues to call us to carry the cross and follow him -- a costly yet grace-filled invitation from the Crucified One who also offers us life.

Before my children were able to read they knew several stories by heart. The stories were picture book favorites that we read to them again and again. When I dared to skip a page or change a word, they would protest, "Mom! That’s not what it says. Read it right."

The conversion of Saul is such a story -- so familiar and pivotal that even those who have never read it often know it by heart and take it to be the paradigm of religious conversion. In a surprising reversal, the person who had been the most ardent antagonist of the young church became the church’s chief protagonist.

It was a surprising time. Sick people were being healed merely by a shadow passing over their bodies. Dead people were getting a second chance at life. The gospel was being spoken even to gentiles. By the power of the Holy Spirit the church was taking shape, bearing witness in farther and farther corners to the grace of God revealed in Jesus. Day by day the church added to its numbers and became central to the lives of more and more people, including Saul.

Saul was building his career on the church. In the itinerant persecution of Christians he spared no effort to stifle the spread of the gospel. Saul was schooled by Pharisee moderate Gamaliel, but Saul was driven to excel in his duty. He was a worker who took the initiative and went far beyond the letter of his job description. Even before he entered the city of Damascus he had procured papers for those he wanted to have murdered. He worked overtime. In choosing Saul -- "an instrument to bring my name before gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel" -- God chose an intense personality bound to work overtime at whatever mission he undertook. Saul knew his mission. But God knew Saul. God knew that Saul was confident, in charge and not particularly curious about God. Capturing Saul’s attention required drama.

On a rainy Saturday I stood on the front porch of a Habitat for Humanity house with a man I had never met before. We were volunteers who had come to unroll sod, plant bushes and sweep a driveway to make the front yard of a new house look more like a home than a construction site. As we waited out the weather under the shelter of the porch roof he began talking. He observed that, although its timing was inconvenient for the work we had planned, we sure needed the rain.

Then, not bothering with a segue, he went directly to his main concern and asked me if I was saved. When I told him that I believed I was, he asked for the date, time and description of my conversion. It is for moments like these that I think about making up my own version of the Saul-on-the-Road-to-Damascus story. But it wouldn’t be true. I was baptized as an infant, raised in a faith tradition I was taught to love and respect, and gradually grew into the theological convictions I strive to live. Every day the conversion continues as I am changed by human encounters, the natural world and countless experiences that provide new insights into the nature of God.

My fellow Habitat volunteer was an outspoken pacifist, a good neighbor and a self-avowed Christian who knew with certainty the moment Jesus called his name and entered his heart. He knew where he was, what he was doing, what he was wearing. He was not impressed with my metaphor for the converted life. (If you consider a flower unfolding petal by petal over days, how can you mark the precise moment at which the bud "converts" to being a flower?) It is no match for the spectacular and unmistakable sound of the Lord’s voice from heaven. I doubted neither the man’s religious experience nor his claim that since that moment his life had been infused with meaning. It was his easy dismissal of a conversion of a different sort that bothered me.

The story of Saul’s conversion is not told as the normative faith experience -- it is the extraordinary one. Even within the narrative of Saul’s conversion there is another model of the converted life.

Ananias was a convert to the faith, and a person who lived close to the divine. His relationship with God was conversational. Unlike Saul, he had been growing in the knowledge of God over time, and when the Lord called his name he didn’t need to ask, "Who are you?" The voice was a familiar one, and he responded as might a child who is being called by a parent from another room. "Here I am." Unlike Saul, Ananias was not struck speechless, sightless and appetiteless. He talked back. Being in dialogue with God was not something new to Ananias. He was practiced at it. When Saul spoke with Jesus, the power of the experience immobilized him within the darkness of his own being for three days. Not Ananias. Ananias got up, went to the house of Judas and delivered the message that God had entrusted to him.

God’s means are tailor-made. Saul’s traveling companions didn’t see the light because the call was not for them. Some with subtler personalities than Saul’s, and some who are lifelong learners, come to know God by different ways because it is not as difficult for God to get their attention. But the lasting mark of conversion is not one date circled in red on the calendar, but the whole story of one’s life. In the end, Saul’s dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus is worth telling only because of what he did afterwards.

Alice Thompson lived with her parents in rural southern Illinois. Besides a house and a tool shed, the other building on their small acreage was a chicken coop where the egg-laying hens roosted. When young Alice found some matches, she took them into the chicken coop to see if she could figure out how to strike one. She did figure it out, and held the burning wooden matchstick until it got too hot, then dropped it. Instead of burning out, the bit of flame fell on a piece of straw, which came alive with fire.

Determined that no one know about the matches, Alice covered up the flame with readily available material -- a handful of straw For a minute, it seemed to work, but then the pile began to smolder. She decided to smother the whole thing, so she scooped up a full armload of straw to bury the evidence once and for all. Satisfied that she had finally taken care of the matter, she ran out into the yard to play. Soon the chicken coop had burned to the ground.

The high priest saw a fire starting and wanted to get it under control. Burying Jesus seemed like the best solution. If he were done with Jesus, then he would be done with civil unrest, and done with excited crowds. If he were done with Jesus, he could get back to the story of his life the way it was originally written -- with the high priest as the central religious figure, the true keeper of God. After all, he had a demanding job. Besides managing the temple, he had Rome to consider. The whole Jesus flap created the kind of disturbance that might bother the emperor.

Disappointingly, the death of Jesus only yielded three days of calm before the disciples came out of hiding claiming that he was raised to new life. By Pentecost the flames were beginning to roar. As the high priest’s frustration escalated, so did his attempts to deter Jesus’ disciples from teaching, healing and preaching.

The disciples gave the high priest a headache, especially the one named Peter. He already had been detained once, but when the council of elders listened to his appeal they could find no reason to keep detaining him. The high priest seemed determined not to make that mistake again. This time he jailed Peter and his comrades straight away No Miranda. No "one phone call." But no need for them either, as the prison locks were not an effective barrier to the Holy Spirit. Before daylight Peter had returned to the scene of his crime and picked up where he had left off teaching. Until the police found him he was free to tell the story a few more times to a few more people. He would not be found in hiding. The whole point of being free was being free to do ministry.

The passage presents a striking contrast between the disposition and mission of the high priest and that of Peter. Throughout, the priest is beset with anger and fear over his mission of shutting Peter down. But not Peter, who is focused on the dissemination of the gospel -- a mission that affords him a joyful and resilient attitude.

The high priest’s questioning of Peter was to the point. Why have you defied my express directive to desist this witnessing? There was a time when Peter might have thought that a reasonable question. There was a time when Peter thought the Holy Spirit could be managed if human beings were just properly instructed in matters of authority and restraint. Right after experiencing the transfiguration, he and companions James and John had spoken sternly to a man who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name. They reasoned that the man was not on the official roster of disciples. They even reported the incident to Jesus as if they had done a good thing (Luke 9:49-50).

But that was before: before Jesus’ crucifixion, before Peter’s own denial, before Peter saw the risen Christ, before the church received the gift of the Spirit. At this point, when the high priest forbids Peter to witness, he might as well have been forbidding Peter to breathe.

Peter’s answer makes clear that from his perspective the role the high priest plays is not that of authority but of executioner. The council is enraged to the point of wanting to silence Peter forever, as they thought they had silenced Jesus. They are politicians who fear a loss of power and credibility, as well as repercussions from Rome. They are the officials of faith, and do not take kindly to being upstaged in the realm of religion. They are spiritual beings and do not welcome the realization that they have grown distant from God. Killing Peter could solve the problem of his filling up Jerusalem with impassioned teaching and relieve the building pressure of their rage.

But in the end, the level head and historic perspective of council member Gamaliel prevailed. He recognized that this criminal was not a common market thief, and that in time one of two things would happen. The chicken coop would be reduced to ashes and lost to memory, or the fire would spread, refusing to burn itself out. It was beyond the power of the high priest to determine the outcome.

He could only order that the accused be flogged and scolded, a dishonor that Peter interpreted as an honor in a manner that Reformer John Calvin echoed: "For whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of his fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of evil."

Around 1967, a visitor came to worship at the church that my family attended. He was a minister on leave from his parish while he worked for Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty. I remember watching him in the narthex. He would lean his whole body into his conversation partner’s space, and in a raised, urgent tone he would voice the same refrain to everyone, "We could do more."

There is more we could do. We address the emergency needs of persons living in poverty, but we do far less to understand and undertake long-term measures that might break cycles of poverty over generations. Jesus told us the poor will always be with us, but neglected to explain why two out of three of those poor persons would be women, or why, even in 2001, a woman over the age of 60 is twice as likely to be impoverished as a man.

Sociologist Dianna Pearce coined the phrase "the feminization of poverty" in 1978, but it is not a modern phenomenon. In the Middle Ages, merchant and trade guilds determined who could practice a particular profession. Women were generally "out." To achieve economic security, some women of poorer classes pooled their resources, living together and sharing their goods, their property and their religious convictions. Beguines, as these communities were called, not only secured the lives of members but contributed to society by running hospitals and schools, by spinning and sewing. Without patronage, Beguines thrived as self-sustaining communities with a social purpose. They provided a way for single women to live lives of worth and service. Yet in 1311, the church’s Council of Vienne condemned their lifestyle and returned them to their place as objects rather than agents of ministry.

In first-century Rome, women without men topped the list of vulnerable populations. A widow had little access to economic structures. The recurring biblical theme of charitable concern for widows reveals their inferior status and poor treatment in the community.

An argument in the faith community over the care of widows raised such concern that the office of deacon was created to resolve it (Acts 6). Yet despite the churchmen’s concern, they stopped short of imagining the widows free from dependence and powerlessness.

The widows of Joppa had only Tabitha and her faith-based initiative. The only woman in all of scripture to be called a disciple, Tabitha cared for the widows, apparently out of her own resources and in the most practical of ways -- she sewed their clothing. Her death was such a crisis that they sent for Peter.

Alone with the body, Peter prayed and then commanded Tabitha to get up. She opened her eyes and, with help, got up. Peter had been on the move, teaching and healing by the power of the Holy Spirit. By that same Spirit he was able to show Tabitha to be alive and well, restored body and soul to the widows who depended on her acts of charity for their survival.

Many who heard about Tabitha’s venture to and return from the other side believed, perhaps because it was a miraculous event. Or perhaps because of what the event revealed about God. The widows would not be abandoned. God would not allow it.

Southwest of Guatemala City, a road leads to the barrio of La Esperanza. The poorly grated dirt road challenges even four-wheel-drive vehicles. At the edges, the street just falls off -- eroded away in gullies cut by rain and sewage. Tiny houses built wall-to-wall are made of scrap lumber, sheet metal, cardboard, cinderblocks. Women, children and an occasional man linger in doorways to catch the elusive breeze. Bone-thin dogs roam, sometimes dragging emaciated puppies clamped onto their withered nipples.

When the Guatemalan government unleashed its wave of terror against the indigenous, largely illiterate farm worker population, 25,000 men, women and children were killed in five years’ time. Thousands of men were abducted from their homes and disappeared. In the early 1980s, the widows of the "disappeared" left the farms and went to the city for refuge and work. Some formed the community of La Esperanza, which means "hope."

The widows came together in their desire to survive and to see their children grow up. They worshiped and worked together. They refused charity, but accepted funds from a Presbyterian program that helped them construct one durable building in the center of the community. The building houses a day-care center, a preschool, a health clinic and a weaving cooperative. The women care for each others children. Some have been trained as dental hygienists and nurse practitioners. Some sew clothing for others or sell weaving in the market. Compared to begging and gleaning, it is a dignified life.

Because Tabitha lived, the widows were not left alone. But there is another truth to which her rebirth bears witness. If death is not the final word, then reality is not bound to what has been. Reality is bound to God’s promise that all things are made new. In God’s new world order, it is possible to be a widow and prosperous rather than poor. It is possible to be self-possessed rather than powerless. It is possible to be an agent of ministry instead of an object of ministry.