In the Gospels we see Jesus frequently spend his time with those who seem far from God’s ways, who live destructive lives of great pain and isolation.

Jesus announces that these are the people going into the Kingdom of Heaven before the religious elites of his day. What does that mean for us?

I’m legally required to wear corrective lenses when driving…and according to my commercial pilot’s certificate, when flying “in critical phases of flight”. I kind of think all phases of flight are critical, but this basically means when taking off or landing. I have a little depth perception problem—which can be kind of a big issue when flying close to the ground—and my lenses literally change my perception.

Metaphorically, all of us wear some lens, or more precisely, lenses through which we perceive the world. And so, we’re never just a neutral observer. Rather, we’re constantly interpreting what’s happening—selecting and deselecting data, adding meaning, making assumptions and acting on them.

Especially when what’s happening is happening to us.

Some lenses are helpful, some not so much; and in Matthew 20:1-16, Jesus tells a story that can help us ascertain the lenses we might be wearing.

Strategic planning guru, Bobb Biehl says, “Until you answer the “why” question, the cost is always too high.”

But this isn’t just true of strategic planning, it’s true of most everything important…including forgiveness.

In this week’s Gospel, Jesus stuns Peter, putting an astronomical cost on forgiveness. A cost, that if you don’t know “why” is always too high.

In the excellent book, The Rise of Christianity, sociologist Rodney Stark chronicles how a tiny and obscure messianic movement from the edge of the Roman Empire came to dominate Western civilization in just a few centuries.

He tells the story of this ever-growing band of believers that had—to the Roman mind—an absolutely ridiculous and absurd way of living in community and of loving their neighbors. It’s a picture of how they learned to love one another sincerely, and literally transformed the Western world.

And so it’s important, as we continue reading through St. Paul’s letter to those first Christians in Rome, to consider his instruction and ask the question, “What kind of community has God called Redeemer to be?”

As we have been more apart form each other we have also found ourselves ever more isolated in online echo chambers.

This is harmful to the Body of Christ and harmful to our own souls.

Eugene Peterson says, “"Keep the Sabbath" is the most commanded command in the Bible. It’s also the most ignored.”

The Prophet Isaiah, in this week’s Old Testament reading, places immense theological weight on Sabbath-keeping...seeing it as the distinct identifying mark of those who would hold fast to God’s covenant love and lifestyle.

A few centuries later Jesus, while stripping Sabbath-keeping of it onerous, piled-on legalistic demands teaches Sabbath as a loving, gracious, and necessary gift, even claiming lordship over it; lightening its legal load but stripping it of none of its theological weight.

The writer of Hebrews, then, sees Sabbath in a profound eternal sense.

In other words, Sabbath, from beginning to end, is a really, really big deal.

Which has me wondering why for a lifetime I’ve been so thoroughly ignoring it.

You?

The familiar story St. Matthew tells in this week’s Gospel reading— Jesus Walking on the Water—is literally dripping (see what I did there?) with straightforward, practical lessons, and rich metaphorical possibilities. And even if you read it fairly casually, you could probably point to most of them.

But if you read just a little deeper, below the surface, this passage also has a vivid subtext rich with deep theological and Christological significance.

And it’s in seeing these that we climb into the boat with the disciples.

There are basically two ways to enjoy stained glass windows.

You can examine the intricacy of each uniquely shaped piece of colored glass individually and inspect the craftsmanship with which they’re joined, or you can stand back and let the sun shine through all the pieces and bring the whole thing to life in glorious detail.

The past several weeks we’ve been looking at the book of Romans up close, examining the particulars of some of the doctrine that’s developed in this letter. This week, though, we’re going to stand back.

Because this week’s reading isn’t primarily about particulars, although there are a fair number of them. This passage is about a pattern; the culmination of an argument St. Paul began way back at the beginning of chapter 5.

It’s what all the particulars are about.

WYSIWYG is an acronym for the aphorism, “What you see is what you get.”

It’s often uttered as a vaccine against disappointment, ensuring that expectations are “properly" calibrated. You’ll sometimes hear it expressed another way as, “It is what it is.”

But isn’t that really just a prescription for malaise and hopelessness? “Get used to it folks, it doesn’t get any better. What you see is what you get.”

And what if that’s exactly wrong? What if what we see isn’t what we get?

St. Paul takes up the answer to that question in the middle third of Romans 8. He insists that the redeemed children of God—and all of creation—are heirs to a future beyond our sight. What we will get is not what we now see.

It’s not WYSIWYG.