In the Body of Christ, love comes to life – as we love with integrity, share in the deep need of the world, and practice hospitality.

Jesus invites us in to work healing and feeding, bringing to life a world of possibility. As Jesus feeds the multitude, Jesus brings the disciples to work, invites them into the building of a brave new world, and says to them: “All this healing, all this feeding, all this life –this is the work that is ours to do together.”

The Psalms take us on a journey through the whole of life – and what we find – again and again – everywhere we look – is the goodness of God. The invitation that the Psalms extend is this: Like a tree planted by streams of water, sink your roots deep, and live.

God – in God’s goodness and steadfast love – stands with the poor, the vulnerable, and the oppressed, in the place of deepest need. In our anger, God invites us to stand there too. The imprecatory psalms point us to the deep pain in the world; they point us to the peril of our propensity for violence; and they point us – through all that – to seek the goodness of God, who is always standing there, in the place of deepest need.

From the cross, Jesus cries out in the lament of the psalms, and brings us into a new song for a new creation and a brave new world.

When we pray out of our pain, God is listening, and God is for us. In the psalms of lament, we pray in response to the God we have come to know – to the God who has loved us first – and we ask for help.

We praise to name and acknowledge God’s goodness in the world, more powerful than anything that does us harm. “We praise God in order to see the world as God does,” and then to say “Yes!” to helping God make it so.

God searches us, knows us, and loves us still.  God creates us, challenges us, recreates us – always in love. Psalm 139 comforts us and unsettles us, and asks: Do we really want to be known?