Living In the Mirror

''The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart has withdrawn from its Maker. For the beginning of pride is sin, and the one who clings to it pours out abominations. Therefore the Lord brings upon them unheard-of calamities, and destroys them completely. The Lord overthrows the thrones of rulers, and enthrones the lowly in their place. The Lord plucks up the roots of the nations, and plants the humble in their place. The Lord lays waste the lands of the nations, and destroys them to the foundations of the earth. He removes some of them and destroys them, and erases the memory of them from the earth. Pride was not created for human beings, or violent anger for those born of women.'

--Sirach 10: 12-18

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."'

--Luke 14: 1, 7-14

I am a great lover of nerd culture, but one series that I have actually never really followed is Star Trek.  I know a few of you are Trekkies, so I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I never quite got into any of the series.  But there is one episode of the original Star Trek that I have always appreciated called “Mirror Mirror.”  Airing in 1967, “Mirror Mirror” introduced what the show called a Mirror Universe, where Captain James T. Kirk was evil and Mr. Spock had a goatee.  Other Trek shows through the years would return to the Mirror Universe, and icons of pop culture from Superman to Transformers have tinkered with the idea of another world that is the complete opposite of ours:  where up is down, left is right, and we say hello when we leave and goodbye when we arrive.  It is a universe turned upside-down.  

Kirk & Spock in the episode Mirror, Mirror

I often suspect that folks who heard the Good News preached by Jesus of Nazareth must have thought that he was talking about some kind of Mirror Universe; I suspect some still do.  Think about it.  He turns the usual ways of the world, the standards by which we have learned to order our lives, upside-down. We have been taught competition over cooperation, revenge over reconciliation, leading over following, enhancing our importance over humbly submitting to one another. When we attend a function like a dinner party, we’ve learned to scan the room to find those whom we like, with whom we want to be seen, and from whom, perhaps, we can gain some personal benefit, always keeping our eyes on the prize, on the next step up the ladder, higher and higher. Jesus’ not-so-subtle advice: reverse that strategy. 

There’s something about dinner parties, am I right? Clergy get invited to a lot of them, let me tell you, and there’s a rhythm and pattern to these kinds of functions. The host is trying to make it a good experience for everyone, but when the Big Deal folks walk in, there’s extra special attention that’s paid. Not that much has changed from Jesus’ time. There’s a kind of honor that comes from both hosting such a party and being invited to it, and especially in the ancient world these parties were opportunities to define one’s honor in relation to other people. Jesus often sat and ate with Pharisees and other religious leaders, bantering about Scripture and theology, the kind of activities that Pharisees lived for, their “play for mortal stakes” to borrow a line from Robert Frost. 

They thrived on these debates, especially with someone who held the level of respect and admiration as Jesus did. But as he scans the room and looks at the table, Jesus makes a suggestion that must’ve thrown folks for a loop: the next time you hold a dinner party, don’t invite your friends, your family, or the Big Deals; but rather invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, the outcast, and the socially and ritually unclean. The very folks you’d never consider, that you’d never want to sit at your table. True honor and blessing, Jesus is saying, does not come from seeking recognition and prominent stature, but by being among, living with, and ministering to these kinds of folks. This isn’t about good manners and party etiquette, this is the Kingdom of Heave;  this table that Jesus is calling the host of this party to create is what it looks like, and to hammer his point home he drops a truth bomb from Proverbs, chapter 25, verses 6 and 7, which they would’ve known very well: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Jesus at the Pharisee's dinner party.

It seems pretty clear that Jesus is giving us a lesson in pride and humility, something that is echoed in the words from the Apocyrphal book of Sirach: “The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.” Personal pride is what leads to not only an individual’s downfall but also the downfall of entire societies. The writer of Sirach closes out the reading today with the reminder that pride was not created for human beings, and yet, as someone in our Bible study said, we can’t seem to escape it. Why is that? 

Perhaps because pride very often masks itself as humility. Consider a certain political figure who, not that long ago, gave an interview in which he said, “I have far more humility than you might think.” The humble brag. Jesus’ words could then be heard as an instruction for how to manipulate others into getting what we want – be it power, prestige, or possessions. The moment that we have convinced ourselves of our own humility – our own righteousness, if you will – is the moment when pride takes hold. We can usually be sure that this is the case if we find ourselves getting defensive when someone calls us out on it. Jesus stands, now as then, offering something besides a divinely approved way for a person to be sure that they get what they want or that they are on the side of the righteous. Genuinely taking the lower seat is one thing, but doing so hoping to get noticed and moved up is another entirely. Scholar Fred Craddock compares this moment in Luke to a cartoon, a mad dash for the lowest place, with everyone’s ears cocked toward the party’s host, waiting for the call to ascend. 

Humility was a counter-cultural concept in Jesus’ day, something that, if actually lived out, could turn the world upside down. As far as Greco-Roman moral discourses were concerned, humility was rarely discussed. Today, however, it is talked about so often that it seems to have lost all meaning; and that humble brag is an everyday part of our lexicon. Real humility is hard to find, only the masquerading pride that is often a lip-service virtue. People talk about humility, but then place the very same labels of ostracization on folks that the ones around that Pharisees’ table placed on the poor and outcast. If we are to develop real humility in our lives, we must abandon any and all of our assumptions of position, our belief that we are morally right and others are wrong, that we are cool and others are mid, that we are humble and others need to be humbled. Those assumptions of position are what lie at the heart of patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativ, and other modern, sinful instruments for maintaining socially, politically, racially, and religiously unjust systems. What then is the solution?

Martin Luther King called it the Beloved Community. Jesus called it the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a place where all belong, or none belong. A place where quid pro quos and transactional relationships are not needed. In this community, this kingdom, love is given without anything being asked for in return. Jesus tells the host of the party to invite the very folks who he not only wouldn’t consider sitting at his table, but folks who could never invite him to their own table, folks who couldn’t pay him back. Who is that for you? Who is the person you would never consider inviting to your table, who themselves could not or would not pay you back in kind? That’s who Jesus calls us to meet and invite to the tables in our homes, the tables at our church fellowships, and especially the Holy Table of the altar. Because that’s what Beloved Community, what the Kingdom of Heaven, looks like. It ain’t exactly a perfect reflection of how things actually are, but rather it’s God’s dream for how they should be. 

The clear sign of recognizing the inherent dignity in others, of cementing real Christian relationships with them, is breaking bread together. That’s the thing about a table: you can’t not be in relationship with a person when you’re sitting with them over a meal. We don’t need to build bigger walls, we need to build longer tables. Leave our positions of status, our fancy degrees, moral superiorities, and flag decals at the door because they ain’t getting us into the party. It’s only by grace, which has already invited everyone – you, me, them – and we’ve all got a seat, even the ones we might wish didn’t . Some could say it’s a Mirror Universe, an upside-down world that could never be; but don’t tell Jesus that! Because as far as he’s concerned, as far as we’re concerned, the world as it is now is what’s upside-down, it’s the mirror; the vision Jesus provides is what’s rightside-up, what’s really, really real. And that's no humble brag. 

A Real Shomer Shabbos

"Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing."

--Luke 13: 10-17

Bible pop quiz! How many commandments are there? If you said 10, you’re wrong; the grand total is 613. Let’s try another one: which is the fourth commandment? “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” This commandment is given in Exodus, chapter 20, verse 8 and again in Deuteronomy, chapter 5, verse 12. The Exodus version ties Sabbath back to the rest that God took after the six days of creation, hallowing the seventh day as a day on which no work should be done. In Deuteronomy, however, the commandment is tied to the Exodus event itself, whereby God reminds the people that under Pharaoh they worked as slaves, tirelessly, night and day, and that, unlike in Egypt, every person in their midst should observe Sabbath rest. It’s not a suggestion, it’s an expectation.

It is on a Sabbath’s day – Saturday – that Jesus is in a synagogue teaching, which, for what it’s worth, was not considered work because it wasn't transactional. While there he notices a woman who is suffering from an illness so debilitating that she’s permanently hunched over. She does not approach him, nor does she ask for anything, but seeing her in this condition, Jesus calls her over and pronounces that she is set free. Then he places his hands on her and she immediately stands upright. Even though it had been ok for him to teach, it was not, evidently, ok for him to do any healing. This did count as work, and as Walter from The Big Lebowski reminds us, the aim of any good Jew is to be shomer Shabbos, a keeper of the Sabbath. This interaction, which is witnessed by a crowd of people, is enough to send one of the synagogue leaders into a passive-aggressive frenzy. Rather than directly confronting Jesus, a fellow rabbi, he throws the woman under the proverbial bus: “Now’s not a good time, come back tomorrow!” His ire, though, is meant for Jesus, this delinquent who appears to not understand the commandment that there are six days for working; he seems to be anything but shomer Shabbos.

John Goodman as Walter in The Big Lebowski.

Or is he? Jesus performs an act of mercy on someone, something that should be perfectly fine on the Sabbath, given that it’s ok for someone to untie their mule and give it water; so if it’s alright to be merciful to an animal on this day, why not a person? This response, according to our text, shames the leaders and excites the folks who have witnessed this miracle. Is it any wonder that this is the last time we see Jesus in a synagogue in Luke’s Gospel? 

This confrontation speaks to the tension between the bountiful gift of salvation that God provides and the human desire to control it. I’d like to think that this particular leader of a religious community is not a malicious person, but someone trying so hard to figure out the correct thing to do that he misses what is the right thing to do. Again, like Walteri, he’s not wrong, he’s just a…..jerk. As the scholar William Barclay points our, “Jesus insisted that suffering must not be allowed to continue until tomorrow if it can be helped today.” This guy, with his rigid legalism, doesn’t get that.

Perhaps, though, it is less about rigidity to the commandment and more about a misunderstanding of it; after all, Jesus uses the commandment itself to argue against the leader and his response to the woman’s healing. Sabbath, is about much more than a 24 hour period of forced rest, it is a mindset and way of being. Sabbath is connected to creation and our finding contentment in God alone, just as we did in the beginning. It cannot be forced from the outside-in, but rather must come from the inside-out. Sabbath starts in our hearts and minds and spirits. We cannot rest on the outside from our labors if we are unable to rest internally from the myriad of trials and temptations that plague us. In a world that is constantly trying to control us from the outside-in through the pursuit of power, prestige, and possessions, developing Sabbath from the inside-out is an act of resistance.

Perhaps most importantly, Sabbath is intricately linked with the Jubilee, an expected celebration, according to Leviticus, chapter 25, during which time all debts are forgiven, all prisoners released, all lands returned to their original owners, and all people head back to the wilderness, which is where they met God in the first place. It’s a sort of hard reset button on society, one that keeps God at the center. The Jubilee occurs on the 50th year, following seven sets of Sabbatical years. (Every 7th year, in which all slaves were released from their bondage was a Sabbatical year.) In other words, Sabbath is deliverance.

The horn and broken chains representing the Jubilee (image courtesy of www.chabad.org).

This, I suspect, is what lies at the heart of Jesus healing the woman, rather than a statement condemning the legalistic view of the synagogue leader. The woman’s illness had resulted in the loss of social relationships and standing within the community. She’d been made unclean, forced to endure exclusion and loneliness. She is need of deliverance. Jesus’ words to her – “You are set free!” - not only bring physical healing but they also reinstate her to legitimate membership within her community. That sounds like behavior much more fitting of the Sabbath than simply watering one’s ox. 

This encounter between Jesus and the unnamed bent-over woman is all about deliverance and breaking the yoke. Her critics tell her it isn’t an illness from which she suffers, no, it’s possession by an evil spirit from Satan. This is the yoke placed on her by the community. Jesus removes this yoke, empowering her to stand and give glory to God. It is as if her eyes are finally open, like Dorothy seeing in technicolor for the first time in The Wizard of Oz, or Neo waking up in the real world in The Matrix. 

Dorothy goes from black and white to technicolor in The Wizard of Oz.

Think of the yokes that are habitually placed on us by a consumer-driven society designed to keep feeding us with bread and entertaining us with the circus, all the while our own freedoms are gradually pulled out from under us without ever knowing. Folks with eyes to see cry for freedom from such yokes, but the powers-that-be tell us now isn’t a good time, come back tomorrow. The lesson of this Gospel is not a condemnation of the commandment or “rule” to follow Sabbath, it is a condemnation of those who forget what it really means. Because if Sabbath, as a mindset and lifestyle, were actually incorporated into our lives, then every person would have their yokes thrown off and would know real freedom and delight in the Lord, to paraphrase Isaiah (chapter 58), who warned those returning from exile and captivity to not be as their oppressors had been, but to honor the true meaning of Sabbath and not to trample on it.

We dare not trample on such good news, though contemporary society has tried – just look at how they turned a Sabbatical from one year’s time to a matter of weeks! If sin is addiction, as one theologian put it, then ours is the addiction to a culture that tries to keep folks in line by distracting them with this or that product or gimmick, so that the real evil – the real Satan that binds us – can continue to thrive. But blessed assurance, Jesus is ours, and he will be there, if we hear him calling like the woman did, to set us free from that which binds us. In his book Sabbath as Resistance, the late, great Walter Brueggeman says “Sabbath is not simply a pause. It is an occasion for reimagining all social life away from coercion and competition to compassionate solidarity. Such solidarity is imaginable and capable of performance only when the drivenness of acquisition is broken. Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes. It is the pause that transforms. It is an invitation to receptivity, and acknowledgement that what is needed is given and need not be seized.”

This is grace, which, like Sabbath, is freely given by God. A gift that finds its truest meaning when we give it away to one who is suffering. It’s hard to say if the Jubilee, that year when debts were forgiven, land returned, and prisoners freed, ever actually happened in the context of history. But that was God’s dream. That’s shalom…salaam…peace. And whether it’s actually happened or not doesn’t really matter; we still strive to achieve that dream in both prayer and action. Isaiah calls us to be repairers of the breach – a slogan borrowed by the Poor People’s Campaign. Jesus calls us to proclaim by our words and actions that the Kingdom has come near, that Sabbath is not just a day to be observed, but a life to be lived. And if we could live that life, brothers and sisters, justice would roll down like waters, mercy would be freely given, and all would walk humbly with our God. It’s not a suggestion. It’s an expectation.

Faith, Faith, Faith

'The word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." But Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir." But the word of the LORD came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir." He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.'

--Genesis 15: 1-6

'Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

'By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-- and Sarah herself was barren-- because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."'

--Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-13

'Jesus said to his disciples, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."'

--Luke 12: 32-40

A great sage of 1990s once sang about the theme that runs through all of our Scriptures today:  “Before the river becomes an ocean, before you throw my heart back on the floor, oh oh baby I reconsider my foolish notion, well I need someone to hold me but I’ll wait for something more, cause I gotta have faith, oh I gotta have faith.”  God rest your soul, George Michael! 

Voice of an angel!

Ya gotta have faith.  We throw that sentiment around a lot, don’t we?  Ya gotta have faith that this will be the year our team finally wins—story of my life as a Cleveland sports fan.  In George Michael’s case, he’s gotta have faith that he’ll find that partner who won’t break his heart. It’s not just something that we preach on Sunday mornings.  Faith is an underlying theme of so many aspects of our day-to-day lives, and we are often told, in one way or another, that if the thing doesn’t work out, then we just didn’t have enough faith.  Is that, though, what biblical faith is?

Immediately our attention gets grabbed by the first sentence in the 11th chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  That’s one of those sentences of Scripture that’s so popular that we see it on bracelets and bumper stickers; even Episcopalians can usually quote it.  But what’s really going on with this statement? The Greek word is pistis, which is used 4,102 times in the Bible . It means “a firm persuasion”, which is based not on sight or knowledge but on trust. And it goes both ways; it is inextricably tied to the notion of covenant, of relationship. God has pistis in Abram – the exalted ancestor – which is why God makes him Abraham – the ancestor of a multitude – showing that being “faithful” is about making and maintaining a commitment to an other, rather than being assured that God – or whoever we’ve made a covenant with – will give us something; after all, even though God’s promise to Abram is ultimately fulfilled, Abram himself doesn’t get to see it.

Mosaic of Abram (Abraham) gazing at the stars.

As for that definition of faith, our translation muddies the water a little. The word that gets translated as “assurance” –“faith is the assurance of things hoped for”--is hupostasis, which is better translated as “reality” because it doesn’t have anything to do with personal belief.  Also, the word translated as “conviction” –“the conviction of things not seen”—is elenchos, which again is not about personal conviction but is better translated as “proof.”  We could, then, read this definition as: "Faith is the reality of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen."  When we think of faith in this manner it becomes less about a personal assurance and conviction and more about the ever-truthful realization of the forward movement of God.  

Even that word, “faith”’ has been hijacked and used in nefarious ways. Consider this: what is the first thing that pops in your head when you hear the term “faith-based?” I suspect, based on some of your faces, that it isn’t the story of Abram from Genesis or the definition given by Hebrews 11. There are “faith-based” movie production companies – even a streaming service called Pureflix, I swear I did not make that up – and their products are quite bad. There is the Ark Encounter in Kentucky that says it offers a “faith-based” approach to science and thus shows dinosaurs and humans living together, and some parents and even public officials have pushed for actual school curricula that follows similar “faith-based” models that ignore real science. And, of course, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a great many folks proclaimed “faith over fear,” arguing that their decision to not be vaccinated was “faith-based.” How ironic, given that for many of us the decision to be vaccinated was, precisely, inspired by our faith, our commitment to and trust in our neighbors to care for one another. A great many of my friends and family ask if I have kept up with the HBO series The Righteous Gemstones, a kind of satire on the “faith-based” entertainment industry of megachurches and celebrity pastors, and while I love me some Danny McBride and John Goodman, I can’t watch it when our culture continues to portray “people of faith,” as little more than self-serving content creators and self-absorbed consumers. What has modernity done to faith? Where is the faith expressed by God to Abram, or written by the author of Hebrews? Where’s the faith of Jesus?

Promo image for season 2 of The Righteous Gemstones

I believe that the faith of Jesus is what stands between us and this neverending stream of false prophecies and heretical behavior that claims again and again to be “faith based.” Jesus makes clear in this teaching from Luke’s Gospel that faith in our God – the God of Abram whom Jesus called Abba – is not found by acquiring anything – be they power, prestige, or possessions - , but rather by surrendering everything. The entirety of God’s realm – a state of being that Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven – is ours if we are willing to give away our stuff and everything else that we fear to lose. Fear attaches to whatever we cannot release, becoming a ruinous mold in the dark isolation of our grasping and clutching for control. The capitalist, consumer-driven culture of ours says that we can have control over our lives, that everyone can be a Caesar, if we accumulate riches or rely on this new device we’ve marketed as something that will do the hard work for us. Fear infiltrates our life, alters our breathing and shows up masked as various anxieties and the overwhelming need to fix things. By surrendering that need and the things that give us that false sense of control, we make room for Jesus to shine a healing light upon our minds and hearts to clear the mold of fear away; what’s he’s commending in our Gospel this morning is faith – even if pistis is not used -  the kind, that has its assurance in a future that is secured not by human wants and desires, but by the One who’s got the whole world in those mighty hands.

What can this kind of faith really do for us? It liberates us from our need for control, which itself is rooted in our fear of loss, the ultimate loss being death itself. But by living expectantly, unencumbered by the temptation for control, life becomes lighter, the burdens less self-inflicted. We find ourselves working with Jesus to create structures where all embrace his model of self-emptying love, even to those who trouble us; so much so that a thief coming in the middle of the night will not be able to alarm us. “Welcome!” we can say to the thief. “I’ve got plenty of stuff to offer you. I’m not afraid. Sit down at my table. Enjoy the feast!” Because, as one person in our bible study said this week, “God should be our only attachment!”

There is one great example of this kind of faith in fairly recent memory.  During the Apartheid days of South Africa, when the government tried shutting out any vocal opposition, Archbishop Desmond Tutu held a church service where armed police entered his cathedral in Cape Town in a move of intimidation while Tutu was preaching.  At one point he finally addressed the police directly and said:  “You are very powerful, but you are not gods. So, since you’ve already lost, I invite you to come and join us!”  With that, the congregation broke out into singing and dancing.  No one knew then that Apartheid would eventually be defeated, but Tutu’s faith was in something bigger, in the Kingdom of Heaven and the ultimate victory of God. When we place our faith in that Kingdom, in that victory, we will want for nothing, we will fear nothing, and we will do far greater things than we could ask or imagine.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

This is what I believe it means to live lives of faith, lives that are oriented toward something so much bigger than ourselves; our desires, as well as our fears. From Abram the exalted ancestor and Jesus the Christ, to Desmond the bishop and you, may we be faithful, as God has been and continues to be faithful to us. And know that there’s an angel out there somewhere, singing for you and encouraging you along……

Ya gotta have it!