A prayer of lament doesn’t doubt God’s reality, or God’s power. The very act of prayer holds within it an assumption of faith, a seed of hope.

Even when all seems lost, the prophet declares, “I will rejoice in the Lord, I will exult in the God of my salvation.” It’s not denial. It’s defiance. It’s faith that refuses to let despair have the last word.

Psalm 146 tells us that God “keeps his promise for ever,” “gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger,” “sets the prisoners free,” “opens the eyes of the blind,” “lifts up those who are bowed low,” “loves the righteous,” “cares for the stranger,” “sustains the orphan and the widow,” and “frustrates the way of the wicked.”

The psalm invites us to trust that God’s promises are true even when we can’t see their full reality. And I wonder if the psalm might also suggest a role for us to play.

Today’s readings show us three very different models for a life lived in service to God... Each model can help us live a faithful life—but each has its own pitfalls and blind spots.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells a story about a sheep that wanders off. The shepherd counts his flock—1, 2, 3…97, 98, 99. Ninety-nine. But there should be one hundred. The missing sheep is vulnerable, unable to find its own way home.

And then Jesus tells a story about a coin, dropped, misplaced, hidden in dust or in a dark corner. A coin that can’t call out to be found. It just lies where it fell, helpless and lost.

Deuteronomy makes it sound so easy to choose a path in life. Love the Lord your God, walk in his ways, obey his commandments—and all will be well. God will bless you. Easy, right?

Come to God’s Table. Not because you’ve earned a place there, but because Christ himself has invited you. And then go out into the world to set tables of your own—tables where the hungry are fed, where strangers become friends, where the walls that divide us are broken down by the radical hospitality of the Gospel.

It’s that time of year. Calendars are filling up, “to do” lists multiplying. In the church, we’re planning the new program year—looking ahead to children’s chapel and weekly choir anthems and community outreach and new classes and social gatherings. The word of the day is “busy.”

Yet into this hectic time comes scripture’s whispered reminder of an idea our society has almost forgotten: “sabbath.”

Let us run the race set before us, as those who came before us did in their day—with perseverance, with faith, and with courage. And when the story of our time is told, may it not be said only that we kept the lights on or tended this beautiful building. Let it be said that we faced the fires of our age with honesty and love. That we forgave one another. That we chose truth over false peace, and hope over despair. That we left behind a record not of survival alone, but of faithfulness to Christ, whose refining fire still burns in us and through us.

“This very night,” God says, “your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared—whose will they be?”

That’s the sting, isn’t it? Not just that he dies, but that all his careful preparation couldn’t guarantee him a single extra day of life.

It wasn’t the planning that was the problem. It was the illusion—the quiet, persuasive lie—that wealth is the same thing as security.

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Jesus sends out messengers, but he doesn’t give them weapons. He sends them out like lambs among wolves. Not warriors. Not watchdogs. Not even shepherds—who might at least carry a heavy stick. Lambs. Lambs in the midst of wolves.

It’s not an image to build much confidence. Lambs are fragile, dependent. Cute and fluffy, perhaps—but seldom fierce. And yet this is how Jesus commissions his followers for their first important task. Not with swords or talking points or strategy. But with vulnerability.

Stuff. Most of us have too much of it.

That’s a literal reality— But it’s also a metaphor.

Because it’s not just closets and drawers that get cluttered. It’s our calendars, our habits, our identities. We carry old roles, old expectations, old fears— Sometimes long past their usefulness.

“Don’t be afraid.” It’s the most repeated sentence in Scripture. Not “be good.” Not “love your neighbor.” Just this: Don’t be afraid.

Jesus doesn’t offer those words as mere comfort. He commands it—because he knows how quickly fear can take hold, and how thoroughly it can distort our souls.

Fear can make it hard to see God, hard to hear God’s call.

The Trinity can be hard to understand. But one thing the Trinity definitely is is a community. God is relationship itself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all part of a dance that our faith allows us to enter into. The Trinity reminds us that we were made for connection, for love, and for community.

When I hear the story of the Tower of Babel—the story of a people who sought uniformity and greatness, a people who were afraid of being scattered—I get it. They want predictability. Familiarity. They want to stay put, with people who speak like them and think as they do. The physical tower usually gets all the attention in the story of Babel, but it's not actually at the heart of the story. It's a story about people trying to protect themselves from the unknown.

And so God does what God so often does. God disrupts their plans.

Salvation isn’t just about what happens after we die. It’s about how we live. It’s about whether we stand with the imprisoned, the wounded, the afraid. It’s about whether we remember who we are—even in the dark.

Sometimes, liberation looks like walking away from what binds us. But sometimes it looks like staying—with open eyes and willing hearts—because someone else’s freedom depends on ours.

The Church was born at the margins—outside the gates, in hidden spaces, among people others overlooked. The Church didn’t start at the center of things.

We see that Church of the margins in today’s reading from the Book of Acts. Paul has a vision. A man from Macedonia (modern-day Greece) pleads, “Come and help us.” And so Paul travels for the first time to a region that we’d call Europe, to the city of Philippi.

Once there, Paul and his companions don’t start preaching in the town square. Instead, they go outside the city gate. To the river. To a quiet place of prayer. To a gathering of women.

And there they meet Lydia.

The familiar is comforting.

The familiar is comforting. And change is hard.

Human beings are wired to stick with what we know, to turn inward. It’s natural. It’s human.

But, unfortunately, sticking with the familiar isn’t very Christian.

The story of Christianity is the story of a widening circle. It’s a story of people following Jesus into the midst of change—Jesus, who himself broke every boundary.

In a time of peace, a new community of Jesus-followers grew in the seaside town of Joppa, forty miles from Jerusalem. One of the disciples was a woman named Tabitha. She didn’t do anything extraordinary. Well, not anything miraculous, anyway—at least as far as we know. She cared for people in need. She made clothes for them. Maybe she worked to feed the hungry. Maybe she sat with the sick and dying. Maybe she used what money she had to help others. Maybe she spent time in prayer. She was probably a widow, but that’s not entirely certain.

We really don’t know much about her. Joppa was an ordinary town in which ordinary people lived. And Tabitha was an ordinary woman.