St. Patrick Presbyterian Church, EPC

Imagine you’re the parent of teenage twins. In some ways, you’ve prepared for this - the human part, at least. You’ve been on the planet for decades. You know what it feels like to make the leap from childhood. But then there’s the parent part, which is pretty new. You’re not much more than a dozen years in, and the game keeps changing.  Last week, the cut list was released for the competitive lacrosse team the twins have both been working to make. You blow it immediately: as soon as they get home, you ask them how it went. Rookie move. You can see it on their faces before the words leave your mouth: one got the spot on the roster, and the other didn’t. The one who didn’t make it chimes in with what most people would consider an extremely mature and healthy response. He rejoices with those who rejoice, smiling and saying he’s happy for his brother and that this frees him up for better things. But you know your son. You know he’s hiding his heart, and you think you know why. So, a while later, you try again. You get him alone and don’t say a word. Just sit next to him and pull him into your chest as he sinks into sobs.  Can I suggest to you that that was an even more mature, healthy response? But he needed the invitation, and he needed to come away from everything else first. Maybe he’s a kind soul and he loves his brother and didn’t want to ruin the moment for him. Maybe he was embarrassed and wanted to downplay what felt like a failure. Either way, he was hindered by the other cares he had in that first moment from his core needs. He needed a place where it was just you and him, to express the pain of unfulfilled desires. Of being “not there yet.” This week we talk about the last of the five doctrines of grace: “the perseverance of the saints.” Contrary to popular misuse, these doctrines aren’t simply eternal truths about other people. And this one in particular is very much the opposite: it’s intimate comfort for me. We’re going to do our best this week to get alone with God, (a better father than we’ll ever be), and let the troubles of living in this already-but-not-yet world melt on His chest as he comforts us in the way that only He can. 

There are things in this world that defy explanation. There are events that happen that you would say are impossible. I just read an account of that in David Grann’s book, The Wager. It is the story of HMS Wager, a British ship that was lost at sea rounding Cape Horn—the southern tip of South America in 1741. It was reported by other ships in the squadron that it just vanished. However 2 years later, various factions of the ship made it back to England, telling tales of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder.You read the book, and you can’t believe it is possible that anyone would survive this shipwreck given the weather, the desolate island they were initially stranded on, the privation they endured, and the navigational feats they achieved, and yet they did. It has been a week like that for me. On Sunday I will tell you another story where the seemingly impossible happens. That is not just from my estimation of the situation, but also from everyone I asked, including the car body shop I went to. He heard my story and looked at one of his guys who worked for him and said, “I don’t believe in all our years here we have ever seen this before".We do love stories of the unlikely and the unimaginable, don’t we? Well, this week we turn to look at how the redemption that Jesus accomplished at the cross actually comes to us, and let me just say this—in the Gospel, the impossible becomes possible. I will say no more until Sunday!I hope you will join us. I don’t know about you, but it was good to get back into a rhythm this past week. Now if we could just get some coo

The first debate I ever heard about the atonement of Jesus was at my grandparents' house in Northeast Mississippi. I was only about ten or eleven at the time, but from time to time the debate would come back up. My grandfather was a Calvinist, and my grandmother was not. My grandparents were some of the finest people I have ever known. They loved the Lord a whole lot. I have my grandfather's Bible, which has a cloth cover sewn on it, and I can still see him in a recliner reading it after lunch until he fell asleep for a short nap before we headed out to the fields. My grandmother was quietly poetic, and I can still see her at the stove with a calico apron on, a spatula in hand, a little flour on her face—grinning as she quoted some piece of poetry to my cousin and me.They rarely argued, and this point of theology may have been the only argument they engaged. But here is what would happen. A conversation about Jesus's death on the cross would begin, and my grandmother would say this—and when she said it, she would direct her scripture to my grandfather. She would say, "Olen, Jesus said, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered you under my wings, but you would not.' See, Olen, that is free will—'you would not.'" She would articulate this with poetic flair and pathos. My grandfather was a man of few words and, totally undaunted by the passion of her delivery, would say this: "Now, Marie, the angel that announced Jesus's mission said this: 'You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.' See, Marie—'his people.'"This Sunday we will be talking about the atonement of Jesus and looking at the story of the cross and why the whole image of Christianity is gathered up in this one symbol. We will be pondering the question: did Jesus really make an atonement for sin, or just make atonement possible? I hope to see you Sunday as we continue to marvel at the grace of God!

I didn’t grow up in Reformed theology circles. We were part of a branch of Presbyterianism that had rejected its confessional roots and only partially retained the governmental structure. I think I knew in my late teens there was something called “5-point Calvinism,” but I didn’t know what that meant, or anyone who believed in it (other than my grandfather’s hermit cousin). Fast forward 25 years, and now it’s not just an optional feature of the Presbyterian package for me. It’s a foundational part of how I understand the God of redemption. I teach it several times a year and each time my faith is always enriched.  One of the things I’ve heard many times along my own journey of discovery is someone claiming to be a “4-point” Calvinist. Often the “point” these folks don’t want to adopt is the one of the two we’re talking about the few weeks: unconditional election and limited atonement. But the deeper concern is actually a collection of unspoken logical implications drawn from the flow of the entire argument. When I learned what they were objecting to, I was quick to recognize the logical inconsistency of this pick-and-choose method. The whole rational nature of the doctrines of grace collapses under that kind of buffet-style theology. Why would people do that? What takes much longer and much more love is to see how this is not a quibble with the theology, but commitment to God’s holiness paired with a confession of grief. When you are a broken person in relationship with broken people, Biblical terms like election and predestination (and theological counterparts like eternal security and assurance of salvation) aren’t just ideas. They carry heavy implications for those we care about. We are not just rational creatures. We are affectionate too, and very protective of our loves. And the secret is that this tension we feel is not just a problem: it’s a hint at the solution.  This week, I hope to help us repent of a separation between the rational and relational aspects of our souls that puts us between the rock of our salvation and the hard places of our experience.  If God is as gracious as we Reformed folks claim He is, then the way we talk about the so-called “doctrines of grace” should reflect that. And He certainly is. 

I am not much for throwing out Latin terms. Long ago I took Latin and was not very good at it, but sometimes an old term just needs to be used, and if we don't know it, we just need to. Sola Gratia is the name of a new series we are starting this week and will run for the next five weeks. Sola Gratia means grace alone. It was one of five solas that came out of the Protestant Reformation—like battle cries, or things we hold dear and must never forget, or we will lose something that must not be lost.If you have been around here for a while, it will sound familiar to you, because it is one of our four core values—"Grace is Everything." It's not just a core value; it is, we might say, the core value which makes all our other values possible. Grace alone is what the gospel is all about. For the next five weeks we will look at the gospel and ask the question, "Why is grace everything?"Sunday we will look at what we might call a biblical anthropology, or who we are as human beings before God—what is our essence as image bearers of God, and how has sin affected us. It is a bleak picture, and one in which, if we do not understand it, grace will just be something, not everything.I hope you will join us Sunday!

The more I think about gratitude and thanksgiving, the more I am convinced that gratitude is more a matter of being than an emotion. What I mean is we tend to think of gratitude as just a feeling we have as a result of a perceived kindness. And while that is true, I think there is more. When I say it is a matter of being, I mean that gratitude actually affects and shapes what one is capable of seeing. I think this litany we will look at Sunday is a good case in point. A litany is a kind of call and response liturgical device. In this particular Psalm, a statement is made about something God has done, and after that statement, throughout the whole Psalm there is a response that says, “For his steadfast love endures forever.” The thanksgiving ranges from thanksgiving for God’s lavish creation, his glorious redemption, and all the way down to his continued care of his people. It is like the Psalmist is trying to beat it into our heads that there are things we might doubt, but the evidence is in: God’s love endures forever. In other words, if there is one thing that shapes how we know and perceive the world, it is this: God’s love endures always. I read somewhere long ago, and I can’t find the quote anywhere, a writer who was talking about how we learn to love, and he says this about his child, “I kiss my child because I love him. I kiss my child in order to love him.” In other words, love is more than a gush of feeling that then spontaneously is expressed in an embrace; it is also a learned habit, practiced even when feelings are not exactly bubbling on the surface. I think gratitude is like that. We express gratitude when we genuinely feel grateful, but also, we express gratitude to be grateful. Like this litany, we are practicing being grateful, because we know this is the correct posture of seeing and perceiving the world.That is what we will talk about this Sunday. Speaking of grateful, how ‘bout this reprieve in the weather this week! I don’t know about you, but I am so grateful for this small kindness! 

I have thoroughly enjoyed the World Cup this summer, and I hope you have as well. The celebrations, the underdogs, the brilliance, the world stage, it's an incredible experience. There's a deep sadness creeping in with the thought of it coming to a close this Sunday and having to wait another four years for the next edition.Forty-seven teams from this World Cup will go home and face reality. They will be forced to acknowledge that they were not the best, they could have been better, and they have work to do and four years to do it if they want glory in 2030. But they also must acknowledge the incredible blessing of getting to play in the World Cup, a dream of billions of children across the globe.The tension between acknowledging our own weaknesses and acknowledging our great blessings can be tough. It forces us to admit we didn't earn much of the good we experience. There's a word for that in the Bible and it's used over and over again, especially in the Psalms. And in that word is the better story of the Gospel. So before watching the World Cup Final on Sunday afternoon, let's consider the good news together on Sunday morning from Psalm 107.

Most of the conversation around generations these days, particularly among those who are “terminally online,” revolves around what are actually micro-generations: Silent, Boomer, X, Millennial, Z, and Alpha. I’m told there’s now a Beta designation. As is the case with most online discourse, the general tenor is one of negative comparison and resentful competition. Generational prosperity and cultural dominance have become a zero-sum game for the living only. The losers haven’t even been born yet.  When we log off and enter the Biblical world instead, we see a better story unfolding. It’s all an expression of what is sometimes called “The John 3:16 of the Old Testament.” Exodus 34:6-7 is the most internally quoted and referenced revelation of God in all of Scripture. When Moses asked God to show him his glory, “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”And that’s exactly what we see is driving this whole plot: God’s desire to show favor to those who draw near to him in such a way that has generational consequences. What if the things we think of as our generations’ greatest strengths are actually iniquities incurring debts that our children’s grandchildren will be forced to carry? If you know your genealogy back that far, I’ll bet you’ve already traced some of your brokenness to the choices of a quarter century ago. If you could cast your eye (and some of you can) to your great grandchildren, you’ll notice that some of your own failures already have compounded interest for their lives.   What can we do? That’s what Psalm 145 is all about. The Psalmist places his allusion to the mercy of God from Exodus 34:6-7 in the center of our text, between an impossible standard and a childlike faith. It’s enough to make us gratuitously glad!

Late Monday, I stood in my garden in sadness and consternation as I looked at my tomato plants. I had only been gone four days, but as anyone who gardens in the heat and humidity of Memphis knows, you can do everything right, and things still go wrong. Good soil, proper watering, spacing, sucker to give room for circulation, and spraying regularly —and suddenly you look at the bottom leaves, and they begin to yellow and spot—blight. It can mean you lose your tomatoes and have to pull them up. But with care, ruthlessly stripping the dead leaves off, until there is not much left, spraying with fungicides and proper feeding, the plant revives, and by August you have a crop above the blight line, and by August you are rewarded with great ripening on the vine. This week, we have a Psalm written from the perspective of the blight. The Psalmist is totally honest about the conditions around him; all is bleak, the throne thrown down, the wall breached, the line of promise to human eyes cut off. The promise of God looks as dead as my tomato plants. I won’t lie to you, this Psalm is not for the faint of heart, but it is for those who hang on to God even and especially when it doesn’t look like it will ever resolve.This Sunday we will talk about it. The Psalm is jarring, and it is meant to be. It is honest about the conditions in which spiritual formation takes place, and I, for one, am glad we get to experience this together in worship. That is where all honest lament takes place, or should take plac

Our High Schoolers just got back from a three-day mystery trip, and I applaud their courage and eagerness. They are incredible! It's no easy thing to enter three days without a phone, without a plan, no idea where we're going or what we're doing until we're actually doing it. When's the last time you had a moment like that? When you were three years old maybe? It's a rather terrifying and counter cultural way to live. All our high schoolers were left with was the present moment, the present place, and the present people around them. The power of the mystery trip is you have to be present, and that's where God is at work. It was such gladness for me to see our students enjoy that.A mystery trip, much like a mystery moment in life, is disorienting. It's a liminal space where we've left one room but haven't yet entered the next. We've left stability, and we're floating over the threshold waiting to move forward. This time of disorientation is waiting for not just a return to the old way, but a new orientation, a new perspective, a new way of living. The Psalm we're looking at this Sunday, Psalm 30, is all about the gratuitous gladness found when we've gone through disorientation and God has given us new life on the other side. And this new life, as well as this Sunday's sermon, might just include some dancing.

I’m just aware enough of sports to know that North America has been hosting the World Cup. I catch little snippets of cultural celebrations on restaurant TVs and wonder at the way a team can represent and stir national pride. I don’t follow the games or standings much, but there’s a lot to affirm in the effort. It’s a pure and joyful expression of what it means to be from somewhere. We do our best to set aside the geopolitics of state and focus on the indelible glory of a unique people. That’s a tall order these days, but I do think these athletic events help.  It can be hard to separate our understanding of what the Bible calls “the nations” from the way we’ve been shaped by the modern idea of the nation-state in a global economy.  We’ve developed polar ways of thinking about these things. On one side, there’s the view that each nation is equal and that tolerance is the highest good. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s a belief that one kind of government is best, and all others should conform. Often we toggle back and forth between these convictions depending on which seems more advantageous at the moment.  When we read in the Psalms about “the nations,” or in the New Testament about “the gentiles,” it’s clear that the authors are speaking from the particular reference point of Israel among and even above the other peoples of the earth. There’s a kind of exceptionalism on display for sure, and if we’re not careful we can miss the purpose and heart of God’s plan in blessing his “special possession.”  What does the Bible teach about the future of the nations, and what does all that have to do with us? Let’s talk about it this Sunday. 

When I was a child, the entirety of human knowledge was contained on the bottom shelf of my parents’ bookcase, in alphabetical order. It was basically the internet printed out, bound in 26 volumes, and called The Encyclopedia Britannica. The problem was, you could familiarize yourself with most of it and still not know what it was like to have a girlfriend. Not that I’m speaking from experience; I’m just saying there’s more to know than knowledge. I’m meditating on T.S. Eliot’s “Choruses from ‘The Rock’” this week, thinking about how much truer this is in the so-called “Information Age” than it was a century ago. The endless cycle of idea and action,Endless invention, endless experiment,Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.Where is the Life we have lost in living?Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuriesBring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.Psalm 111, like the Britannica, is presented as an acrostic: the A-Z, (or, if you like, Alpha to Omega) of Wisdom. Yet it presents a very different vision of understanding than mere trivia recall, avoiding all the fascinating details and diving instead to the whole heart of the matter. Knowledge can be downloaded, transferred, quantified. Wisdom is not like that. Wisdom is relational, contextual, and fruit-bearing. Knowledge measures matter, but wisdom measures meaning. What does it all mean? Let’s explore it together this Sunday. 

When I was in my late teens, my grandfather invited me to bring my girlfriend over for “Sunday Dinner.” He was going to grill us steaks and sit down with this young lady he’d heard about. I loved my Pop and was proud to show off this gorgeous girl I’d snagged. So, we went to worship in the morning, grabbed a light lunch, and hung out for a bit before making the drive down to the farm in Germantown. We planned to get there around 4pm since we knew old people like to eat a bit early and we didn’t want to be rude. Allie and I were bewildered by his unusually gruff greeting. Honestly, he seemed a little put out to see us! It didn’t take long for us to realize that he had finished his cold “dinner” hours ago without us. He must have really leaned into his Silent Generation status by stewing instead of following up when we failed to appear at what was to him a clearly appointed hour! We apologized and explained the confusion, that we were used to the word “dinner” meaning the evening meal. Pop wasn’t one to hold a grudge against his grandchildren, so it was quickly forgiven. But I haven’t forgotten. We do something similar with the word “Sabbath.” We’ve adopted the word from another generation and culture and adapted it to serve our own ends. For all practical purposes, a Jewish Sabbath and a Christian Lord’s Day have very little in common. So, it can be a bit of a feat for us to connect the dots between Biblical teaching on the weekly sundown rituals and what we do with our Sunday morning worship. A lot of assumptions are being made that might make us miss our precious appointment. Hopefully, Psalm 92 can help us bridge the gap this Sunday morning at 10:30am. 

At the top of my list of summer goals this year is to eat way too much ice cream. There's nothing like a delicious frozen treat on a hot summer day. Put me in an ice cream shop, and I start to get a little impatient with the people in front of me, sinfully so if they're a Sampler. You know the type, maybe you are the type. "Oh my, so many choices, flavors I've never had before, how many miniature spoonfuls can I get you to scoop for me to try..." Come on now, did you really need a taste of 'Triple Chocolate Fudge' to know what you were getting? Step aside, some people came prepared. Sorry, I better stop before I have to repent. It's the desire behind these misdirected people that's actually the encouragement of our Psalm this Sunday. David is calling us to bring your senses to attention, take a taste of the goodness of God, and savor it until it results in praise. Join us this Sunday as David calls us out of senselessness and to a new experience of the glory of God.  

I’m making my annual trek through Middle-earth right now. Deep longing for Middle-earth hits me in the spring of the year when I am spending a lot of time in my yard and garden. As the quest begins, Frodo and the fellowship find themselves in the mines of Moria. There, Frodo gets squired by a spear thrown by a giant Orc. Everyone assumes he is dead as they watched the force of the spear hurl him back into the wall of the cave. As the company beats a retreat, he is carried out. When they are at a safe distance, they pause to catch their breath and notice Frodo stir. They are all stunned. No one could have withstood that spear thrust. Later, as they take off his cloak to tend the wound, they discover the secret of the mystery Frodo has on a coat of mithril mail, a gift to him from Bilbo. Mithril is the most prized and precious metal in Middle-earth, it could be beaten and worked like copper and polished like glass. It was lightweight and harder than still, and unlike silver, it never tarnished. When Gandalf sees it, he exclaims that the value of that coat was worth more than the whole Shire where Frodo lives.  We are going to look at a similar happening in our I AM text this Sunday when Jesus says, “I AM the resurrection and the life.” Martha, being a devout Jewish believer, believes that at the end of time her brother will be raised from the dead. But then he says something mind-boggling. The power of the resurrection is not something we only experience when we die, but is actually in us right now!It is a staggering truth to think about, one that, like Frodo, we possess but rarely think about or lay hold of in the messiness and brokenness of life. We will talk about it on Sunday. Also, we have a couple of baptisms—one infant and one a believer. Promise and fulfillment are playing out in the water before our eyes. I can’t wait!

The Good ShepherdWhen I was younger, I wanted to hear God’s voice. Audibly. People kept saying that God had told them things, and I wanted to know why he’d been avoiding me. Maybe I wasn’t his type? I asked around and began to realize that when most people said that God was talking to them, what they meant was, sometimes their inner monologue said something that felt Warm and Profound and Suspiciously Like the Thing They Wanted God to Say. I was old enough to know that I couldn’t trust myself to go down that path. The first helpful response I got was that God has already spoken in the Bible: if you want to hear him talk, start there. Fair point. I hadn’t read every word of the Bible yet, so it was reasonable to assume that what I was looking for might be in there. But I felt there was an equally reasonable chance that God didn’t say anything in the Bible about whether I should quit theater and start a band. Was I just looking for broad principles to apply? Was that what it meant to hear God’s voice? No, I don’t think I was looking for advice. I was looking for connection. Words are important. Jesus is the Word, and we are to hide the Word of God in our hearts; to obey it. Jesus' voice doesn't contradict his word. But there is a difference between someone’s words and their voice. Voice is less about what’s said and more about the person saying it. It shapes the way we receive their words. You can tell by the voice whether an apology was sincere or required by parental mandate. Same words; different voice. God keeps saying things like, “seeds become plants.” If He weren’t saying it, it wouldn’t happen. And he must really like saying that. But if you’ve ever seen the cycle of life unfold, you’ll know the mere words are insufficient. Witnessing the miracle invokes a kind of awe that the words can only point to. If God has a voice, then experiencing its thunder and whisper, its life-giving power, can’t be replaced by reading about it. What does it feel like when God talks? His sheep know. 

Years ago, right after I was married, I went to work for my father. My dad was, at that time, the charcoal man of Memphis. A day when Memphis BBQ was king, and there were more BBQ places than hamburger joints. When Teri and I got married, I sat out of seminary for a year before I went back, so I sold charcoal. I remember seeing a new BBQ place opening up and went in to see if I could interest him in some real charcoal. We talked for a few minutes, and then he stopped me and said, “What did you say your name was?” I told him, and he grinned and said, “Oh, I know your daddy, he’s good people, if it’s his charcoal it must be good.” And just like that, he placed his order. I learned years ago, living in the Deep South, that the first question upon meeting a stranger was not, “What do you do?” But rather, “Who is your father?” The logic was sort of, if I know who your father is, I know a lot about you. Right or wrong, that was just the way of things. We have something similar in our text this week, the real question Jesus will tell his audience is simple: " Who is your father?” It is a long passage that moves from a fickle belief in Jesus, to first insults and then stones. It reminds me of something C. S. Lewis said in one of his essays, “[Jesus] produced mainly three effects—Hatred—Terror—Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.” Our text certainly bears that out. We will talk about it on Sunday.

They say mantis shrimp have the most complex color vision of all animals. Their 12 to 16 individual color photoreceptors enable them to receive a staggeringly broad range of electromagnetic signals. These are things that humans with our 3 puny photoreceptors build state of the art instruments to detect. But that doesn’t mean mantis shrimp see better than us: their brains aren’t complex enough to distinguish and discern meaning in all that matter. They’re only using that data to decide what the food is. It would be like using the Artemis II rocket to check your email. A lot of wasted potential there. So, were a mantis shrimp to drive a car, it would no doubt run red lights. Not because it can’t see the different colors, but because it doesn’t understand what red, yellow, and green mean. In the reverse, if you took away all the colors and brushes from a young painter and gave him just a black crayon and a white piece of paper, he would still draw his lover. A medium can limit the message’s complexity, but not its meaning. The painter knows what his heart longs for and delights in, and he expresses that no matter what he’s working with. In a materialistic world, we can get really fixated on the mechanics of things in a way that blinds us to their purposes. So often the question is not “what can it do?,” but “what is it for?” Likewise, there’s a kind of spirituality that says there’s some secret extra knowledge you need in order to be “enlightened.” We think we need more information, a wider education, as though there’s a mantis shrimp-level of Bible-decoding insight just outside our field of vision. But the Bible shows us that what the light reveals isn’t a doctrine. It’s an attachment. An affection far more powerful than insight, which even the most illiterate or undeveloped humans are hardwired to detect and receive. When Jesus says, “I am the light of the world,” he’s not just giving us more information to process. He’s saying, “I’m the One by which you see what and who you really love, and who really loves you.” 

For the Life of the WorldI’ve spent this past week coming down off the high of Holy Week at an annual retreat with a group of close pastor friends. We’ve spent years doing this, contemplating things like the spiritual significance of bread and wine, friendship and hospitality. This year, we decided to open the invitation to other pastors in the EPC, to share a taste of what we’ve been so blessed to receive through our own close friendship. It was risky in some ways. We are scattered across the country and don’t get to do this often, so we were all jealous for more dedicated time with each other. But we also just couldn’t unsee the lonely faces of our colleagues, and we felt compelled to try something new for their sake. It could have been a colossal failure, but, as my friend Tanner says, “Maybe you can’t make a horse drink, but you can salt the oats.” Beginning this new series with Jesus’ self-revelation as the Bread of Life, I keep thinking about the things we’re all hungry for. Another friend, Brandon, is completing a doctorate on the neuroscience of discipleship. He threw out a great line in his talk on that topic that I’ll be stealing forever. He said that the core of the “fight or flight” instinct in animals and humans alike can be boiled down to answering the question, “Are you the food… or am I?” Humans are certainly more than animals, but we’re not less. Remember Paul’s warning in Galatians, “be careful, lest you devour one another.” That’s what makes Jesus’ very first I AM statement so inconceivable. We’re in this impossible situation where we need not to be devoured, and we need not to devour one another, and we’re starving. And he says, I am the food. It’s a staggering statement that elicits one of two responses: “That’s hard to swallow and I’m going to survey my other options,” and “That’s hard to swallow and I know there are no other options.” I’m looking forward to exploring it all with you this first Eastertide Sunday!