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  • The Good Neighbor

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    The Good Neighbor

    Luke 10:25-37

    Daniel Heath

    Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey

    Song of Preparation – “Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior” by Fanny Crosby

    1 Pass me not, O gentle Savior, Hear my humble cry, While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by. Refrain: Savior, Savior, Hear my humble cry; While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by. 2 Let me at a throne of mercy Find a sweet relief; Kneeling there in deep contrition, Help my unbelief. [Refrain] 3 Trusting only in Thy merit, Would I seek Thy face; Heal my wounded, broken spirit, Save me by Thy grace. [Refrain] 4 Thou the Spring of all my comfort, More than life to me, Whom have I on earth beside Thee? Whom in heav’n but Thee? [Refrain]

    Prayer: Speak Lord for your children, from many different neighborhoods, are listening. Amen.

    Did you tune in last summer? After waiting five long years, the 2020 Summer Olympic games finally happened. I woke my sons at 7am to watch the opening cer­ emonies. The broadcast announcers called out each representing country as if intro­ ducing the line-ups for a basketball game, “wearing gold, black, and green, all the way from the Atlantic Ocean.. .here’s Jamaica!” Representatives from each nation carried their country’s colors and sported their tailor-made attire to showcase something of their country’s fashion. “Look at all of the world’s neighbors,” I thought. All kinds of neighbors, all colors, all shapes, and abilities. Then I asked myself, “who is my neighbor?” and more importantly, “what makes a good neighbor?”

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    I then thought about the many churches that exist in my hometown. I wondered which congregations would consider me a neighbor and which would Jesus consider good neighbors. Some people who once participated in worship services, Christian education classes, and community service opportunities don’t come close to church grounds anymore. They said the church of their experience was loving, caring, kind, and concerned, but didn’t have time for all neighbors. In some cases, didn’t even consider everyone a neighbor at all. Jesus has something to say about neighbors and the gospel according to Luke is, where we find Jesus’ answer to the questions about neighbors. Let’s jump right into the story. A lawyer challenges Jesus about the Jewish law of Moses. Like any good lawyer, he wants to see if Jesus has considered the definitions of the terms, if Jesus has considered the scenarios to which the law could be applied; so, he asks, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers by telling a story about a traveler who is robbed. We don’t know much about the robbers. We just know that there were more than one. It could have been two robbers; it could have been fifty-two robbers. We don’t know the names of the robbers or their life experiences, much like we don’t know the backgrounds of those who carried the flags in the opening ceremonies of the 2020 summer Olympic games. Maybe one of the robbers was the lookout and another drove the getaway camel, but they are all called robbers by association. The text suggests that there were also other laws broken besides robbery. The victim was also stripped; the victim was also beaten and left alone for dead. We are talking about some serious offenses here. Some serious breaches of the Jewish law, so the lawyer, who specializes in the intri­ cacies of the law poses this very serious question to Jesus: “Who is my neighbor?” In the face of these serious offenses in our story, who will prove to be a good neighbor? Ah here comes a priest. This story is going to end well, right? A person of the cloth is the first responder, a person who wears the collar, one who went to sem­ inary, the Rev. Dr. Pastor of the 1st Bapticostal Presbyepiscopal non-denominational church. Surely such a one as this will pray for and care for the traveler. Oh, never mind, the priest passes by on the other side. If I can use a track and field analogy, the priest steps out of the lane. Okay but wait, here comes a Levite. Maybe the priest didn’t see the man in the middle of the road, bare, bleeding, and faintly saying “I can’t breathe.” We don’t have to depend solely on clergy; there are others in the faith community who can assist. Here comes The Levite. The Levite will surely help; that’s the worship leader, the one who sings that “pass me not” song. Surely, they won’t pass, but they too pass on by. It is interesting how we sometimes ask God, in our prayers and songs, to do things for us we are many times not willing to do for others.. .(singing) while on oth­ ers thou art calling, do not pass me by. And yet that is exactly what the Levite does. Our text paints a grim picture. The persons identified with ordained ministry, organized religion, trained to help those in need, and keepers of the law walk right

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    on by a human that is in need. Surely, we cannot call them good neighbors and nei­ ther does Jesus. Jesus introduces us to the one he believes to be a good neighbor, a traveling Samaritan. I’m pretty sure the Samaritan was on his way somewhere. I can imagine that when the Samaritan brushed his teeth that morning, he had other plans. I am sure the Samaritan had places to be, things to do, and people to see. Tending to the traveler disrupted those plans and yet Jesus uses this disruption to teach the lawyer, and us, a lesson about traveling this life as a good neighbor. Our disrupted plans must not take priority over others in dire need; a good neighbor recognizes this. Who are our neighbors? As a member of a worshipping community, school, place of employment, or a certain floor in an apartment complex, it might feel as if there is no need to get to know or tend to others in our communities because we already have our members, our friends, our people. It would be easier just to pass on through. Who are our neighbors? The answer to the question is all around you. Think about all the places you just stop by or pass through. Who are our neighbors? In our text, the question is asked, “Which one was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The lawyer is unaware that Jesus is now cross-examining him about the law. Any person the lawyer names—priest, Levite, Samaritan, or rob­ ber – would be the correct answer to the question. The priest, Levite, Samaritan, and robbers are all neighbors to the man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, but only one was a good neighbor. I believe Jesus is really asking the lawyer and us, “which one was a good neighbor?” Jesus tells the lawyer to do likewise. Jesus is telling the lawyer to be a good neighbor. Many label this parable as the Good Samaritan. A more accurate title is The Good Neighbor. In closing, the Samaritan traveler in the text was deeply hurt by the church. I can imagine they never set foot back into a church again. I can imagine that if the trav­ eler had children, they didn’t take them anymore, and there are so many ill effects of the painful experience on that dreadful day. I want to challenge each of us to be aware of when we are crossing to the other side of a path of another human to avoid seeing and tending to their pain. Some people might cross to the other side because the person on the path is unvaccinated, part of another religion, or no religion. Some might cross to the other side because the person on the path is part of another po­ litical party, understands a different interpretation of the Bible than we do, or lives across or on the railroad tracks, yes literal railroad tracks. Be aware when and why you are crossing the street. Let this next season of your journey in faith be titled, in part, The Good Neighbor. Amen.

  • The Gospel of Jesus Christ Was Announced on the Day of Pentecost

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    The Gospel of Jesus Christ Was Announced on the

    Day of Pentecost

    Halim Shukair

    Mother of the Savior Episcopal Church, Dearborn, Michigan

    According to the book of Acts, Christianity began at a single place at a single moment in time. Fifty days after the death of Jesus (now known as Pentecost), a miraculous event took place. “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them” (Acts 2: 2-3 NIV). This is the picture we get in Acts, because different groups of disciples of Jesus gathered to try to make sense of what they had experienced with him and what happened to him after his death. The beginning of Christianity began with different groups, different people. It must have been an amazing mixture, amazing diversity. This is clear from the beginning of Christianity. Speakers of Arabic were among the first people to hear the Good News; “Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” (Acts 2: 11-12 NIV). The Arab merchants traveled to Palestine to do business, and they are men­ tioned in the book of Acts 2:11, among those Jews converted on Pentecost. Arab Christian tribes were all over the Arabian Peninsula, which is bounded by the Red Sea on the west and southwest, the Gulf of Aden on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south and southeast, and the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf (also called the Arabian Gulf) on the east.1 These tribes originated from Yemen and immigrated to some parts of the Levant (Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Syria, and part of Iraq) after the destruction of the Marib dam in the 6th century BCE. Most of these tribes converted to Christianity by the 5th century CE.2 Arab Christians in the pen­ insula were speaking and praying in Arabic, but their liturgical and confessional formulas were written in Syriac language.3 For over thirteen hundred years, from the seventh century until today, the constant struggle to articulate and proclaim the Christian faith in a language largely defined by Islam gave the Christian commu­ nities of the Arab lands much of their unique character. Today, contrary to popular perception which associates Middle-Easterners only with Islam, most ethnically Middle-Eastern people in the United States are Christians. In fact, the majority of Arabs living outside the Arab World are Christians. Unfortunately, because their numbers are small and because their culture is unfamiliar, Christians of Arab and Middle East heritage are often overlooked by fellow Christians, even those com­ mitted to diversity. Christians of Arab and Middle East heritage have many gifts to bring to their siblings in the Church in the U.S.

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    While most persons of Arab heritage in the United States are Christian, most Ar­ abs living in the Arab world are Muslims. So, in their places of origin, immigrants to the United States from the Middle East have lived as religious minorities. They un­ derstand what it means to witness to their faith in circumstances where such witness may be viewed as alien to the dominant culture, forbidden or even dangerous. Their experience can strengthen the commitment-to-witness to Christians whose whole lives have been lived in a predominantly Christian culture. Christians of Arab and Middle East heritage bring a connection back to the roots of our Faith that they can share with the rest of the Church. Much more than Chris­ tians of the West, changed by the Enlightenment and by secularism, Christians in the Middle East remain much more closely tied to the bodily forms of the Faith. Their experience of liturgy is often much more an experience of the mystery of faith, an in­ tuition of the presence and reality of God as Incarnate. Ephraim, an important Syrian theologian of the early 4th Century, asserted that Christians receive the knowledge of God not only through scripture but through the liturgy in which the divine is appre­ hended through the senses rather than the intellect. Christians who have a direct connection to the lands of the Bible can often pro­ vide a helpful understanding of the context and meaning of biblical narratives and teachings. Their grasp of the relationships and situations in Jesus’ parables, for ex­ ample, may come from having lived in similar settings. Their insights can bring un­ derstandings to their fellow Christians when they read and study the Bible together. About four years ago, two Christian faith communities decided to come togeth­ er. Dearborn, Michigan, has one of the highest populations of Arab Americans in the country. For the first time in the history of the Episcopal Church in the U.S., a primarily Anglo congregation, Christ Church, Dearborn, joined with Arab Middle Eastern Christian Church, Mother of the Savior Church, for the sake of learning from each other and enriching each other’s vitality. The former, an English-speak­ ing congregation, the latter an Arabic Speaking congregation—they share the same space, liturgy, Bible Study, conversation, food, and social events through a wonder­ ful Partnership-In-Faith. My congregation, the Arabic-speaking congregation, Moth­ er of the Savior, has about 50 members in that community. The community worships in Arabic and English; it is a diverse community of ethnic Arabs, including Iraqis, Jordanians, Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians. As both congregations began to learn from each other through meals and story sharing, both realized that “we share the same faith in God.” It was to the dominant culture people, the primarily English-speaking European-descent people, to leam how to embrace diversity and experience of the “Fifth Gospel” through the experience of the People of the Land (Bible lands). Through this partnership between Mother of the Savior Church and Christ Episcopal Church, Dearborn, we were able to grow together through all the challenges, cultural differences, and language barriers, and were en­ couraged that Jesus is in the midst of all these challenges, walking with us and through

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    the Holy Spirit. New things started to emerge. These new things were the transforma­ tive power in knowing each other through our different cultures and languages. We were able to enter into a covenant with one another to worship and fellowship together, support each other, and witness to the church God’s reconciling mission in a broken world that longs for peace, justice, and unity. In the spirit of Acts and the Day of Pentecost, I would encourage Christians everywhere to seek friendship, learning, love, and blessing with your Arab Christian neighbors. We have much to teach each other about the world of the Bible, Christian community, and following Jesus. Shukran (Thank you!)

    Notes

    1 William L. Ochsenwald, Encyclopœdia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., November 20, 2019), s.v. “Arabia Peninsula, Asia,” https://www.britannica.com/place/Arabia-peninsula-Asia. 2Niveen Sarras, “Who Are the Arab Christians?” ALAMEH Conference, Chicago, Illinois, 2020.

    3 Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in The Shadow of The Mosque (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 9.

  • Misjudged Movements: Isaiah 58:1-12; James 5:1-6

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    Misjudged Movements

    Isaiah 58:1-12; James 5:1-6

    Joseph F. Scrivner Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church and Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, Alabama

    I taught in the Memphis Public Schools in the 1990s. I was also the Middle School Basketball Coach. During my three years as a teacher and coach, I had a very good basketball team in my second year. One thing I learned as a young coach was the 1-2-1-1 full court press. I had good athletes, and we ran that press very well. As that season progressed, we lost a game or two outside our division, but we were undefeated in our division. Then we played one of our rivals for Homecoming. This team was also unde­ feated. In those days, we had early dismissal for big games in the school gymnasium. We had a packed gym and great excitement. It was a thrilling game! But we lost by a layup at the end of the game. I can still see that last shot. After the game, my dad came up to me and said matter-of-factly, ‘’You pressed too much.” And you know what? He was right. The other team was quicker, and we allowed too many easy shots when they broke our press. I misjudged movements in that game. I misjudged the speed of our opponents. I misjudged matchups. I mis­ judged strengths and weaknesses. I couldn’t see clearly what was going on because I was locked into one way of thinking. I believe something similar is true when we think about race and poverty in the United States. Many people have believed that we as a nation finally made things right on racism and poverty in the 1960s. Many people have adopted a narrative that blames poor black people for their disproportionate social ills. That narrative has misjudged movements. That narrative has misjudged the movement of jobs out of our cities after World War II. That narrative has misjudged the movement of the white and black middle class out of our cities from the 1960s until now. That narrative has mis­ judged how the loss of socioeconomic diversity created unprecedented pockets of urban poverty. That narrative has misjudged the devastating impact of drugs entering these communities at the same time as economic prospects worsened. That narrative has misjudged the incalculable devastation of mass incarceration. That narrative has misjudged the significance of legislation in the 1960s. That narrative has misjudged history from the 1960s until now. But here’s the thing. There were leaders in the 1960s who told us that the civil rights legislation was not enough. There were leaders who told us that LBJ’s Great Society legislation was important, but insufficient. There were leaders who repeat­ edly called for a federal jobs program. There were leaders who knew profit-seeking businesses would not create enough jobs for sustainable communities.

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    A. Phillip Randolph, the union leader who helped organize the March on Wash­ ington, said as much at the March in 1963. Bayard Rustin, the lead organizer of the March on Washington, said as much right after the March. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said as much in the years following his eloquent description of his dream. Even the controversial Daniel Patrick Moynihan said in 1967 that black Americans had been betrayed by the lack of additional legislative action. But we as a nation did not listen. We did not listen because our racial and class prejudices could not avoid knee-jerk reactions to the race riots in the mid-and-late1960s . We did not listen because we were shaken by the assassinations of MLK and RFK. We did not listen because we were tom asunder by anti-war protests and social change. Over the next few decades, as we moved into the ‘70s and ‘80s, many of our larger cities experienced a shrinking tax base, while unemployment, dmgs, crime, and police became larger problems. Then in 1996, William Julius Wilson published an important book titled When Work Disappears. There is much one can say about that book. There are some legitimate criticisms of it. Yet, his basic point stands: the economic breakdown of communities ripples into social breakdown. Wilson said we needed a massive jobs program to combat high unemployment among African Americans in our cities. Wilson contended that most of the social dysfunction was tied to economic deprivation. But just as we didn’t listen to Randolph, Rustin, and King 30 years earlier, we also didn’t listen to Wilson. We misjudged movements. We misjudged movements because we don’t want to take responsibility for the racialized poverty we have cre­ ated in our cities. We misjudged movements because we conveniently forget that our troubled urban areas were created by segregation decades ago. We misjudged move­ ments because it is easier for us to believe biased stereotypes about work and family. We misjudged movements because we don’t want to rethink taxes, investment, and jobs. We misjudged movements because we thought these were problems unique to poor black people. But now we know these are not

    Easter 2023

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    But these are not the only places where we’ve misjudged movements. We also have misjudged the movement of God. We have misjudged the movement of God because we didn’t see that God is on the side of the oppressed. We have misjudged the movement of God because we have believed that God prefers our worship over justice. We have misjudged the movement of God because we have not listened to Isaiah 58. We have misjudged the movement of God because we have not listened to James 5. We have misjudged the movement of God because we have not listened to Jesus in Matthew 25. We have misjudged the movement of God because we have not listened to Jesus in Luke 4. We have misjudged the movement of God because we thought “we” were the ones who were moral, and “they” were the ones who had a problem. We have misjudged the movement of God because we have been self-righteous in our racial prejudice. We have misjudged the movement of God because we have been self-righteous in our class prejudice. We must repent. So let me tell you how my basketball story ended. We ended up tied for first place with that rival school. We had to play an extra game to decide the district championship. We had to play in their gym in front of their student body. Guess what happened? We dominated them! You know why? I changed my analysis. I backed off the press and played a 2-3 zone defense. They didn’t get easy shots. We stopped their penetration, and we rebounded well. We won because I repented of my mistake and changed how I looked at the movements in the game. Isaiah 58 promises God’s presence and blessing if we change our analysis and our actions. Isaiah 58 promises that God will restore and rebuild if we will only stop misjudging movements. Isaiah 58 promises that God will make us repairers of the breach if we will only repent.

  • View from the Pew: What a Parishioner Wants the Preacher to Know

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    View from the Pew: What a Parishioner Wants the

    Preacher to Know

    by Max Sherman

    Austin, Texas

    As I write this, I recall the day my friend’s husband died. I went over to the house where she met me in the driveway on that sunlit day. As I remember, this was my first adult encounter with death. I told her, “I don’t know what to say.” She said, “You don’t need to say anything. Just the fact that you are here is enough. 95

    I was not a pastor, but I am convinced that through the hardest times most pa­ rishioners would say, “Pastor, you don’t need to say anything. Just the fact that you are here is enough.” In 1963, my law partner Jim House, a Unitarian, recruited me, a Southern Baptist /new Presbyterian, to take a slot on the newly formed Board of Directors of Chil­ dren’s Cottage, a home for dependent and neglected African American children in Amarillo, Texas. Pearl Longbine, a Presbyterian and a school nurse, had stumbled onto a serious issue of “doorstep” children in Amarillo. Her survey discovered at least seventy-six Black children who literally did not have a home and spent many nights on some­ one’s doorstep in the African American neighborhood of then-segregated Amarillo. There were many dependent and neglected Anglo children, but the community had established The Presbyterian Children’s Home (PCH) for them in 1925. The PCH campus was located on several acres in the central part of town with several independent living cottages, each with its own set of house parents. PCH was—and is—the pride of Amarillo. But there was no facility for dependent and neglected Black children until 1963. Children’s Cottage had only one three-bedroom house—recently remodeled by airmen from the local base—on a small lot donated by a Baptist church. The house parents were members of another church. Serving on the Children’s Cottage Board introduced me to five women who had a passion for responding to human need. Four were Anglo, one was African Amer­ ican. Estelle Marsh, a Presbyterian, was the daughter-in-law of one of the three found­ ers of one of the major gas fields in the world. Betty Childers, an Episcopalian, was from a pioneering ranching family in the Panhandle. Pauline Robertson, a United Church of Christ member, was from a hard-scrabble pioneer family who had to over­ come many hardships. When the youngest of her ten children went off to school, Pauline started Camp Friendship, a summer program for underprivileged children of all ethnicities. Helen Vahue, a Presbyterian, was the daughter of a General Motors executive who moved to Amarillo when her husband purchased the outdoor signage

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    Advent 2023

    company for the Texas Panhandle. Bertha Huff, a Missionary Baptist, was African American. In her own church, she was the go-to person to organize hospitality and resources on a daily basis for the sake of people who needed anything. Those five women, twenty to thirty years older than I, became close friends of mine and that experience shaped the rest of my life. What do these two events from the life of one parishioner that occurred over six­ ty years ago have to do with the preaching, leadership, and pastoral care of pastors in 2023? Everything, I hope. It is a snapshot of a view from the pew of many churches over many years. Pauline was our chair. Her agenda for the first few meetings was to share why we agreed to serve on a board that seemed to have an impossible task. Without exception each one of us agreed that it was because of our Christian faith, formed from diverse backgrounds: one grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, another on a ranch is Texas, another in small rural Texas town, one in Detroit, Michigan, one from an all-Black church, another from a town with only a Baptist and a Methodist church. The same was true of the volunteer airmen and the house parents. We were all motivated by the gospel preached in many different ways, in many different settings, over many years. One of the most succinct statements about building “Children’s Cottages” of the future is from an article in Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s publication, Windows (Winter 2001) on the theme of religion and politics. It was written by the Reverend David D. Miles, who happened to have had the governor of New Jersey as a member of his flock. ”I believe that the gospel itself is politically charged. My philosophy about preaching on political issues is that one must begin, not with the political issue, but with the gospel. I know that if I am faithful to the gospel, it will inevitably lead to particular political issues relevant to the day … [P]reach the gospel to that particular congregation … and trust the Spirit of God to speak to [each one sitting in the pew]. 99

    Barbara Jordan was my close friend from our days in the Texas Senate and later at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. I was fortunate to be invited to sit with her family at her memorial service at The Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. Air Force One had flown in from the nation’s capitol with President Clinton and most of his cabinet. Governor Ann Richards and many other dignitaries were in the congregation that day. Pastor Cofield was the last to speak. He began, “If Sister Jordan were sitting in her wheelchair at her normal place when she was in the congregation, I would ask her what should I do on such an occasion. I can hear her voice telling me, ‘Preach, Pastor, Preach, man: 999 He concluded with a prayer and a quotation from Howard Thur-

    I like to think that if Dr. King was the conductor of the orchestra.

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    Journal for Preachers

    Barbara would be in the first chair. If Dr. King opened the doors of segregation. She taught us how to walk in and hold our heads up high. If he allowed us to sit at any table and eat what we wanted. She taught us how to act at the table. So we leave here today focused in our minds That we can be the best we can be

    Because she was the best she was. Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. 9?

    So what does this parishioner sitting in the pew in 2023 say to the pastor; Give comfort by your presence. Inspire to service with the gospel, and Preach, Pastor, Preach!

  • Give Me a Clean Heart

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    Give Me a Clean Heart

    Psalm 51; John 12:20-33

    Amantha Barbee

    Quail Hollow Presbyterian Church, Charlotte, North Carolina

    “It’s like fire shut up in my bones, and I just can’t keep my peace.” I learned this line of scripture from the choir as a teen. I just thought it was catchy. I had no idea the choir was quoting Jeremiah, but I find myself walking boldly into that reality every day. When we know the truth of the Lord, that truth bums within our core, and we just can’t let things pass us by. We enter our Psalm text as a prayer for help, an individual lament if you will. Who is lamenting? King David. David prayed this prayer to the Lord after he woke up from his Bathsheba reality. This man abused every bit of power he had. He was rich. He was good-looking, he was the law, he was in the religious majority, and he had people working for him in every industry. He also held himself out as a man of God. But even men and women of God fall short and fall into sin. David said, “Bring her here.” “But, sir, she has a husband. He works for you, too, by the way.” “Did I ask you for your opinion? I said bring her here.” “Yes sir!” He sexually takes advantage of her, gets her pregnant, kills her husband to make it right, and she is nothing, noth­ ing to him, nothing to the townspeople, nothing to society. She was a silent victim, even in David’s conversation/lament with God. Our text says in verse 4, “4Against you, you alone, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are jus­ tified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.” The great OT scholar Clinton McCann, Jr. sides with David and says that what David meant to say was that his treatment of Bathsheba and her family was a failure to honor God and that he didn’t discount her. I beg to differ, David and I beg to differ, Dr. McCann. Isn’t this just like a person who sits in a seat of privilege to write about and make excuses for another person who sits in a seat of privilege? I am sorry, Dr. McCann, a woman with no voice, whom society has made an object of some sick man’s desires and will kill to get it sins more than just against God. David sinned against Bathsheba, against her husband, against her parents, against her friends, and against other women who were also powerless. Oh, this sounds too familiar today, doesn’t it? A 21-year-old man of privilege gets to kill eight people, and instead of being called what he was, like David, a murderer, his privileged friend gets to say he was a sex addict. Since when did sex addict become synonymous with murderer? I am painfully reminded of the 21-year-old who went into Greater Emmanuel church and killed nine people, and officers took him to Burger King on the way to jail. How quickly we come to the rescue of King David, even when he murders nameless, faceless people? They are not nameless. They are not faceless. They are God’s created ones. Then the press tries to demonize the way in which these innocent women made a living in an effort to care for their families.

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    “Give me a clean heart, O God! And put a new and right spirit within me.” We are in the season of Lent, a time to struggle with ourselves and the world in which we live. What part are we playing in hanging Jesus on that cross? We tend to look for kumbaya moments in life. We don’t want to listen to the truth, especially when it means looking into the eyes of those injured. I have had so many conversations with multiple friends this week. They reached out because they wanted to vent without judgment. “I am afraid for my parents. They are elderly. I don’t know what to do, and this keeps getting worse. Ever since Trump called it the Chinese Flu, we have been bullied. Nobody wants to hear our pain because we are not black or white. We feel invisible to this, especially the Christian USA.” These are things I have heard this week. This is not a kumbaya moment. The season of Lent is not designed for kumbaya, light a candle and run off into the sunset! No, this is the time to embrace the injured and to stop the injuries. John expresses the words of Jesus powerfully. He says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Church, if we are to bear fruit, we must die. Think of that beautiful seed that comes from a piece of fresh fruit. If you plant it, it will mold and not bear fruit. In order for a seed to grow, it must dry out, yes, die, so that it may live. We have all watched death up close and personally over the past year. I have personally lost ten people very close to me since March of 2020, only two to covid. It is painful to watch. It hurts, is sad, and takes us through a myriad of emo­ tions, and we don’t know what to do with all the pain, but we must die to live. We must die to have eternal life. In this season of Lent, we are called to die. We must let old ways that are not good for the whole die. We must let our lack of trust die. We must let our negativity die. We must let our judgment die. We must let our anger die. We must let our addiction to yesterday die. “Well, preacher, I am tired of hearing about oppression. I am tired of hearing about racism. I am tired of hearing about equal rights. I am tired of hearing about gay rights. Where is Jesus? That’s what I want to hear about. I am just tired and troubled by all of this. I wish someone would just tell me what to do so we can get past it. Where is Jesus? I want to hear about Jesus.” You are right. Let’s consult with him. John 12:27: “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” Friends, we are here at this horrific crossroad of our journey. Jesus said that is why we have come to this hour. We have come to this hour to rise up, get up, stand up, pray up, gird up, and Jesus up so that we may prosper. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is why we pray that prayer, like David, “Give me a clean heart so that I may follow thee.”

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    Reflection As I reflected on this sermon, I knew I was angry. I was angry at all the killings in our society. I was angry at all the Covid deaths and the folks choosing not to get vaccinated because of poor leadership advice. I even had to rewrite a few sections of it to send a similar message so many months later. My congregation was feeling very similarly. They were confused and seeking some release. Covid, coupled with the bad behavior of the powerful, has made us quite skeptical and not secure in our faith. Our faith has been shaken to its core. Sometimes we must offer people an out­ let for their grief and emotions. They were able to do that through this sermon. What I shared was my vulnerability. I, too, suffer and grieve. Following this sermon, I offered a time of reflection and study the following Monday evening. The participants were able to share their frustrations and griefs as well. They were encouraged to go back and listen to the sermon again via YouTube prior to the class. The class was a powerful time of cleansing. We worked in small groups of two in breakout rooms and the large group as well. As we journey into the Lenten season, we as leaders must be keenly aware of where we may be extra hu­ man. We must know where our struggles are so that we may work collectively to the cross with others. It is not always easy to share our deepest feelings, but the scripture offers entry and exit points for us and others.

  • Christmas Dinner at Mary’s Place

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    Christmas Dinner at Mary s Place

    Jon Walton

    Wilmington, Delaware

    It was Christmas Eve in the city with a chill in the air and a dusting of snow on the sidewalks. Jeff Murdock held his daughter, Grace’s, hand, while Mateo, two years older than Grace, carried a shopping bag jammed with ribbons and wrapping paper and stocking stuffers. The children’s other father, Miguel Santero, was preparing a Christmas dinner of family favorites: pozole soup, chicken tamales, pavo with combread, and cinnamon buñuelos, which were Mateo’s favorite part of the meal… dessert. As evening came and the stores began to close, it finally seemed like Christmas had arrived. Grace, c’mon,” Mateo said, “you’re moving too slow, we have to get home. Pappa Miguel is making dinner. 95

    “T’I’m coming,” said Grace, “but look!” Grace had stopped to focus on a doll

    named Saige in the toy store window. “Just look at her dress and cowgirl boots. Dad. You know Saige is on my list for Christmas, right?’ »’9

    Mateo knew everything on Grace’s list, but he tried to get her mind off the pres­ ents by saying, “Look, we’ll have to wait and see what Santa brings. 55

    Mateo looked at Grace to see what she was thinking. He wasn’t about to say anything to spoil Grace’s hopes, but Jeff had been out of work for three months this past year, and Mateo knew that he and Grace shouldn’t expect too much from Santa, Dad, or Pappa. Nevertheless, Saige was on Grace’s list and she would be in a special wrapped box in the morning.

    ÍÍ ‘C’mon,” said Jeff, “time to get home.” Grace took Jeff s hand again while keep­ ing her eyes fixed on the window. By the time Jeff and the kids made it to their apartment building they could see the Christmas tree in the window on the second floor. It had been a family project to decorate the tree with Chrismons, paper stars and crosses and angels in white and gold. And there were twinkling lights and homemade strings of popcorn, each one a nursery school creation that Mateo and Grace had made just a few years before. They were carefully packed away each year for the tree that was always in the window. This year Grace had made a special angel of papier mâché and placed her where the angel could keep an eye on all that was happening below. As they climbed the stairs to their building, Mateo paused to say “Hi!” to Mary, the homeless woman who had gathered all her worldly possessions of plastic bags and scraps of food and pieces of paper into the cart that she had taken from the gro­ cery store on permanent loan. With everything jammed into the cart she camped on

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  • Additional Tributes to Frederick Buechner

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    Additional Tributes to Frederick Buechner

    We reached out to several other pastors and asked them to share their thoughts about Frederick Buechner. Here are their thoughts.

    Sometimes, some times but rarely, one hears the spoken word and is astonished by it. A person comes along who is able to put language together in such a way that draws us nearer to the living Word. As a college senior, I first heard Tom Long preach and was astonished. Here was a new kind of preaching. I still remember the text from Galatians and a story Tom told, which forever shifted my impression of Paul’s passionate letter. Within a year, I was a student in Tom’s preaching class at Columbia Theological Seminary. Our assigned text that Spring of 1981 was Frederick Buechner ’s book, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy & Fairy Tale. Also that Spring, Frederick Buechner came to Columbia as guest speaker for our lecture series. Understated in every way, Buechner sat, as I recall, at a plain table in the church’s chancel. Each day he read quietly from the manuscript before him, rarely looking up at us. We leaned forward toward him, listening intently to his soon-to-be-published memoir The Sacred Journey. There was a collective hushed as­ tonishment. His memoir became an invitation to see our own lives anew. The power of his words invited us to imagine what each of our lives, and what the life of this world, could be and already are in the truest sense, now that the Word has come to dwell among us. Like many preachers I know, I have a whole shelf of Buechner books in my study. Though he set the bar higher than I could ever attain, in my own way through all these years of ministry, I have been trying to put words together in such a way that invites, draws people nearer to the astonishing Word, which in the end is full of grace and truth. – Kimberly Clayton, The Presbyterian Church, Fredericksburg, Virginia

    Frederick Buechner did not convey the kind of overconfident, arrogant Chris­ tianity too often on display. He modeled a faith deeply rooted in the Christian tra­ dition, while also understanding the legitimacy of ancient and modem doubt. This is evident when Buechner reflects on the challenge of believing that Christ’s death on the cross reveals God’s love. That God can subject God’s self to violence in the incarnation without legitimizing that violence. That God can save humanity in Christ by dying at the hands of human evil. This is what Buechner conveys when he wrote, “Jesus Christ is what God does, and the cross where God did it is the central symbol of New Covenant faith.” On this point, Buechner reaffirms Paul’s proclamation: “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). – Joe Scrivner, Stillman College and Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church, Tusca­ loosa, Alabama

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    No other writer has served as my vocational guide more than Frederick Buechner . His words are both aspirational and inspirational and leave me feeling like there is more to be done, more to explore, and more to become. The Buechner quote I have memorized, and I assume the one all Buechner fans know by heart is “Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.” This quote has served as my litmus test in determining the integrity of my call and the contentment of my soul throughout my ministry and before ministry. Buechner suggests that there is a place in the world where our greatest joys and the world’s greatest needs meet, and at that moment, something holy happens. He believes that our greatest joy and the world’s needs are meant to meet and become dancing partners, and he dares us to go looking until the two are united and become one. – Shelly Wood, Orchard Park Presbyterian Church, Carmel, Indiana

    In Fred Buechner’s memoir Telling Secrets, he describes what it was like to be a father to his daughter as she battled anorexia. What stands out is his own helpless­ ness and the way he likens that helplessness to the mysterious power of God: “The best thing I could do for her was to stop trying to do anything,” he writes. “I think in my heart I knew [the medical professionals] were right, but it didn’t stop the madness of my desperate meddling….” “What saved the day for my daughter was that when she finally had to be hos­ pitalized in order to keep her alive, it happened about three thousand miles away from me….I have never felt God’s presence more strongly than when my wife and I visited that distant hospital where our daughter was…the passionate restraint and hush of God.” Among his many gifts was Buechner’s ability to capture God’s love and pres­ ence in the everyday helplessness through which we all live. He didn’t do it with formulas such as “God has a plan” or “God’s got this.” He did it by describing his own faith, in all its doubts and limitations, in a manner that made it easy to recognize. It remains one of Buechner’s most enduring gifts to many of us. – Ben Dorr, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Greenville, South Carolina

  • Let Me Introduce You To Gen Z

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    Let Me Introduce You To Gen Z

    Brittany Porch

    Broad Street Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio

    Who are these 10 to 25-year-olds sitting in the pews (or not) on Sundays when you are preaching? How do we share the good news of the Gospel with them? How do we communicate belonging, and how can we be the church for a generation like no other? First, we get to know them and what makes them unique. I have been in youth ministry for 15 years now, and the shift from Millennial youth to Gen Z youth feels big. Not that they are really all that different from Millennials , but the culture and world have shifted big time too, placing more and more demands on these young people. Their needs, values, and way of living are unique. And they are by far my favorite generation out there. I am biased because I love my job in youth ministry, but hear me out! As a generation, they are marked by their strong ethics, work in social justice, openness to vast understandings of gender and sexuality, and concern about consent. They are digital natives. They don’t just embrace rapid change; they expect it! They value education, and they care about integrity and authenticity. They are a very ra­ cially and ethnically diverse generation. I love Gen Z. But they also struggle more than any other generation with mental health, partic­ ularly depression, anxiety, and self-harm. They worry deeply about climate change and being a well-rounded person. They are really well-behaved statistically, with lower rates of driving accidents, teen pregnancy, and drinking and drug use. But that behavior is deeply connected to anxiety and the drive for perfection. They see the world as a broken place. In my lived experience, more than half of youth on a trip these days take melatonin to sleep. This generation struggles. So, what does this all look like lived out in the church? How do we include Gen Z in worship and the church community? First of all, make space for a more expan­ sive understanding of gender and sexuality. Gen Z invites us to see beyond the binary genders of male and female. Gen Z deeply cares about learning people’s names and preferred pronouns. So much of our language is boys and girls, men and women, son of and daughter of, and it’s time to embrace language that is more inclusive like ya’ll or child of. Another way to honor this generation and their values is to change our spaces to welcome all genders in restrooms. Gen Z is anxious. They need a safe space to not be anxious. They need relation­ ships among their peers and other generations. They seek a place of hope. The church can be a place to connect with God, something bigger than themselves. They expect change to happen immediately. Things that are slow to change will frustrate them. If things do not make sense, they will want to see change rapidly. This was true before the pandemic, so one can only imagine their openness to change now.

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    They care deeply about social justice and ethics, and the church can offer a way for them to express that calling in their lives. They are leaders of movements against gun violence, racism, and climate change. Let them lead in the church too. They are very engaged with the world, so in turn, the church and it’s preaching needs to be too. This is a generation that deeply appreciates authenticity. They are turned off by the quest for performance and “perfect” worship, and they want worship leadership to be a little more real. Does a robe matter to this generation? Probably not. They are more drawn to stories than academic theological study. They want their pastors to feel like people they can eat dinner with. I know Gen Z will change the world. We want these young people in our church pews and in leadership. Make space for them to come as they are, a generation like no other, uniquely needing the healing love and hope of God, and uniquely offering their caring, loving, true selves in return.

  • Moving Beyond Happy, Sad, or Angry: Two Books that Expand Our Emotional Repertoire

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    Moving Beyond Happy, Sad, or Angry:

    Two Books that Expand Our Emotional Repertoire

    Amy Miracle,

    Broad Street Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio

    Most people recognize only three emotions: happy, sad, and angry. Our actual emotional life is so much richer than that. The Field Guide to Emotions: A Practical Orientation to 150 Essential Emotions, written by Dan Newby and Curtis Watkins, invites us to expand our emotional palette. This book identifies 150 emotions, in­ cluding ambivalence, anguish, confusion, exuberance, incredulity, mischievousness, serenity, and wonder. This isn’t a book to read; it’s a book to explore. It’s a book to have handy when you feel stuck or find yourself circling the drain, or when someone asks you, “How are you feeling?” and you struggle to come up with an answer. After having a pasto­ ral care conversation with someone and you are searching for words to help, you’d better understand their emotions. For each of the 150 emotions, the authors name our typical reaction when we experience the emotion, the purpose of the emotion, and the time orientation of the emotion-whether it is referring to the past, present, or future. Also included is a help­ ful summary of how the emotion might get in the way and other emotions we might confuse it with. In addition, there are categories that highlight what’s happening within our bodies when we experience the emotion. Looking at emotions this way has been transformative for me. I now embrace the idea that emotions are not good or bad, positive or negative. We may find some emotions easier than others, but all of them have something to teach us. Another book that I recommend is Brene Brown’s most recent project enti­ tled Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connects and the Language of Human Experience. In a break from her previous books, this one is physically beautiful, with color and images and full page quotes. She sets out to show her readers how accu­ rately naming emotions gives us the power of understanding, meaning, and choice. She covers eighty-seven emotions in her trademark style that combines storytelling, references to popular culture, and research. My favorite part of the book is how she organizes the emotions by chapter. For example, Chapter 1 covers “Places We Go When Things are Uncertain or Too Much” and includes the emotions of stress, being overwhelmed, anxiety, worry, avoidance, excitement, dread, fear, and vulnerability. Chapter 2 focuses on “Places We Go When We Compare” and includes another set of emotions. Her thirteen chapters cover a lot of ground including “Places We Go When We’re Hurting” and “Places We Go When We Search for Connection.” There is emerging research that shows our ability to name an emotion helps us regulate it. That makes both of these books interesting and useful resources for those who hope to lead and live in this world.

  • Before the Hills in Order Stood: And Afterwards

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    Before the Hills in Order Stood—And Afterwards

    D. Cameron Murchison, Jr.

    Black Mountain, North Carolina

    Isaac Watts’s lyrics came to mind recently as I was contemplating the possible meanings of the second law of thermodynamics for theology. (I ’ 11 explain what caused such a bizarre contemplation later.) Sang Watts,

    Before the hills in order stood, Or earth received its frame, From everlasting thou art God, To endless years the same.

    Watts of course was echoing the Palmist who sang long before him:

    Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90: 2)

    It is interesting to realize that both Watts’s early eighteenth-century language and the much more ancient language of the Psalmist are consistent with the notion of a world, a universe, and maybe universes that have been in motion for a long time. Moreover, the motion has involved change—from when the hills did not stand in order, before mountains were manifest, to when they reach their present majesty; from when the earth had not been framed, when it was unformed, to when it had taken the shape witnessed by the Psalmist and Watts, respectively. In both there appears an emergent cosmology that sees an unfolding, changing reality in the world around them. Of course, whether the majesty of the hills or the shape of the earth were the same circa 1000 BC and AD 1700 is another interesting question that brings me back to meditation on the second law of thermodynamics. The law tells us that for the longest of long-term features of creation (our universe and any others which there may be), thoroughly disorganized, unstructured reality is the eventual condition. To use a metaphor from physicist Brian Greene’s Until the End of Time,1 like the aroma of freshly baked bread that initially hovers around the point of baking but eventually radiates throughout the house and dissipates beyond, so the physical world we inhabit is destined for a similar fate. We can take heart initially from the fact that eventually in this context means much longer than creation (again, creation as a whole) has been in business —and almost unimaginably longer than there have been us homo sapiens around to contemplate the matter. Ok, according to Katie Mack,2 the actual number of years before we reach this point is 101000 -which is the number 1 followed by more zeroes than you would care to write. Best I can figure, that is many times longer than it has taken for earth to get to its present “frame.”

    I But I’ve been drawn into this meditation because not so long-ago things seemed

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    more promising to me as preachers and theologians engaged with scientific thought. In 1988 I wrote an article for the pages of this journal that took considerable comfort from what cosmologist Freeman Dyson was saying in his fascinating book, Infinite in All Directions. For example, “No matter how far we go into the future, there will always be new things happening, new information coming in, new worlds to explore, a constantly expanding domain of life, consciousness, and memory.”3 But cosmology has undergone some seismic shifts in years since Dyson wrote those words and since I read and appropriated them to my theological ends. Most notably it appears that the discovery of “dark energy”4 in the years since has decisively shifted the cosmological calculus. Rather than a universe whose rate of expansion continually allowed for life to adapt to its changes, the force of dark energy appears to be accelerating the expansion of the universe. This has led Dyson to observe that important parts of his views have been rendered obsolete. “We now have strong evi­ dence that the universe is accelerating, and this makes a big difference to the future of life and intelligence.”5 One strategy for the preacher-theologian in the wake of new learnings from physics, astrophysics, and cosmology is to set aside the attempt to think biblically and theologically in concert with science. My own experience of finding theological resonance with Dyson’s earlier view certainly suggests that a certain caution is in order, especially when too much advantage may seem to be earned for faith in the conversation with physics. Yet, the conviction that the life of the mind belongs to God argues that theology and the proclamation it funds should continue to occur in clear awareness of what current cosmological science may be discovering. There may be no clear advantage for faith in the conversation. Indeed, there may be significant impediments presented. Still, a thoughtful faith sponsored by thoughtful preaching will want to consider how core theological affirmations about creation can best be articulated in the context of contemporary cosmology.

    II Two recent books to which I have already referred furnish stimulating and chal­ lenging insight along these lines — Until the End of Time by Brian Greene and Katie Mack’s The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking). The latter is a delightfully written bestseller that renders many of the startling developments in cosmological investigation in an engaging manner. The former is an equally delightful account that ponders, especially in its concluding chapter, implications that for the preacher will be especially salient. What both make clear is that the theological comfort I took in 1988 from a thencurrent understanding of the likely long-term future of the universe is no longer avail­ able. They describe a variety of possible developments that could happen over almost unimaginable time scales given what is now known about the constituent elements of the universe. However, none of the possibilities include the survival of life, mind, and consciousness as we know them. Greene and Mack concur in the judgment that among the multiple possibilities, the most likely is the one also cited above by Freeman Dyson, that the evidence now suggests that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. This contrasts greatly with the previous understanding that since the Big Bang, the universe has been gradually decelerating, an outcome more hospitable to life, mind, and consciousness continu­

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    ing pretty much forever. Instead, the ultimate outcome for the universe is increasing disorder (entropy) until all that is left is dark, empty space in which nothing much happens. The first consolation we might find in the face of this picture is that it is so many billions of years into the future that it shouldn’t worry us. Or, better said, we should attend to more immediate worries. Before it occurs, we will have to survive our pen­ chants for destroying ourselves by inter-human warfare or environmental disregard. If we are lucky enough to survive these, we’ll have to figure out ways to adapt to living in different environments in the universe since our solar system and even our galaxy will become inhospitable to our continuance long before the ultimate quietude that cosmology describes. In any case, eternal, empty darkness is an experience that will occur in a post-human future.

    Ill Nonetheless, this portrait of how things will eventually be, “until the end of time,” does pose a theological issue. It’s not just that “we are ephemeral and evanescent,” as Brian Greene puts it.6 So is everything—at least in longest of long terms, from the largest to the smallest of physical particles. “The entropic two-step and the evolu­ tionary forces of selection enrich the pathway from order to disorder with prodigious structure, but whether stars or black holes, planets or people, molecules or atoms, things ultimately fall apart.”7 And pondering all this is what recalled Watts’s hymn that led me quickly to Psalm 90.

    Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

    The Psalmist was able to look back from the present as then experienced to a primordial past—before the world as the Psalmist knew it had taken shape—and trust that divine benevolence had guided the whole process, “from everlasting to everlast­ ing you are God.” Instructively, the Psalmist continues by candidly acknowledging the ephemeral and evanescent character of human existence.

    You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.” For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. (Psalm 90: 3-6)

    No longer looking backward, the Psalmist has now looked forward to the universal human destiny of transitoriness —a destiny that we are learning from contemporary cosmology is shared by the universe itself. Yet both the backward look and the forward

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    look by the Psalmist are decisively contextualized by the very first affirmation of the Psalm: “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psalm 90:1). The Psalmist’s theological invitation in view of the cosmological future is to affirm that God continues to be creation’s dwelling place—both as the hills come to stand in order and as they inevitably decay into disorder, both as the whole creation evolves through our remarkable moment in time toward a future that appears inevi­ tably diminished. In all moments of this movement, God is to be trusted as “dwelling place”—the provider of care and protection sufficient for the circumstances of creation in every time. With such a conviction, we may live into the Psalmist’s petition later in this Psalm, “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart” (Psalm 90:12).

    IV One more thought for further exploration of faith’s relation to cosmology: if the ultimate destiny of our universe’s accelerating expansion is dark, disordered motion, a particular New Testament passage springs to mind. The wisdom of God to which Psalm 90:12 refers is the same Wisdom/Word that the Gospel of John speaks of being present with God in the beginning, actively engaged in the creation of all things. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (John 1: 1-3). This text goes on to claim that this Word brought life and light into the world and then poses an implicit theologi­ cal question to our universe’s cosmological destiny of dark, empty space. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5). A worthy theological project is to explore what it might mean that even the darkness of distant cosmological “heat death”8 will not overcome the power of life and light that was in the beginning, “became flesh and dwelt among us,…full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

    V As previously observed, the eventual expansion of the universe into empty darkness portrayed by contemporary cosmology is an experience occurring in a post-human future. So, at the predicted cosmological outcome, only God (and angels?) will be there to take note. But there is another Psalm that suggests how it might all seem to the divine observer:

    If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day. for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139: 11-12)

    In saecula saeculorum. Amen.

    Notes 1 Greene, Brian, Until the End of Time (Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 2020), 32-33. 2 Mack, Katie, The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) (Scribner: New York, 2020), 104.

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    3 Dyson, Freeman, Infinite in All Directions (Harper & Row: New York, 1988), 115. 4 cf. Greene, Ibid., 254-256. 5 John Horgan, 2018, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/freeman-dysons-solution-tothe -problem-of-evil/. 6 Greene, Ibid, 322. 7 ƒ/?ƒ<£, 316. 8 Mack, Ibid., 90.