Jesus invites us into a just and generous way of life: 16th after pentecost a

El santo evangelio según san Mateo (20:1-16)

Jesus said to the disciples:

¹“The dominion of heaven is like a man, a householder,

      who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.

            ²After agreeing with the workers for the denarius of the day,

                  he sent them into his vineyard.

      ³When he went out about nine o’clock,

            he saw others standing in the marketplace without work;

            ⁴and he said to them,

                  ‘You also go into the vineyard,

                        and I will give you whatever is just.’

                              So they went.

⁵When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock,

      he did the same.

⁶And about five o’clock

      he went out and found others standing around;

      and he said to them,

            ‘Why are you standing here all day without work?’

⁷They said to him,

      ‘Because no one has hired us.’

He said to them,

      ‘You also go into the vineyard.’

⁸When evening came,

      the lord of the vineyard said to his steward,

            ‘Call the workers and give them their wage,

                  beginning with the last and then going to the first.’

      ⁹When those hired about five o’clock came,

            each of them received a denarius.

      ¹⁰Now when the first came,

            they thought they would receive more;

                  but each of them also received a denarius.

                  ¹¹And when they received it,

                        they grumbled against the householder, ¹²saying,

                              ‘These last worked only one hour,

                              and you have made them equal to us

                                    who have borne the burden of the day

                                    and the scorching heat.’

            ¹³But he replied to one of them,

                  ‘Friend, I am not unjust to you;

                        did you not agree with me for a denarius?

                        ¹⁴Take what belongs to you and go;

                              I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.

                                    ¹⁵Am I not allowed to do what I choose

                                          with what belongs to me?

                                    Or are you envious because I am generous?’

                                          ¹⁶So the last will be first,

                                                and the first will be last.”

El evangelio del Señor.

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For my whole life I have worked hard.  In school, I did my homework and completed projects and essays on time.  I always did my work—sometimes the night before it was due—but I did it. 

This carried over from high school to college and into seminary as well.  I would figure out the deadlines for projects and essays and I would meet them—even if it meant staying up way too late the night before something was due.  Even when my work wasn’t as good as my perfectionist self thought it could have been, at the beginning of our classes, our professors would say “no extensions” and so I would turn my imperfect work in on time.

To my dismay (and grumbling), some of my classmates would come to class the week or even the same day that some big essay was due and ask for an extension!  And what was worse: the professors would usually grant them the extension!

Oh the injustice and the grumbling that would follow—just ask some of my seminary classmates who had to listen to me.  It wasn’t fair!  We all got the information at the same time and I was being punished for having done the work—having “borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat,” or long sleepless night!

And then, at the end of my second year of seminary, my grandmother went into hospice care and I took the train from Chicago out to Connecticut to be with her.  Most of my classwork was done, except for one essay for my class on Israel’s Prophets. 

Although I had done the research, the essay wasn’t written and even when I wasn’t in Granny’s hospital room, my mind and my heart were there.  I couldn’t focus on the essay.  I just couldn’t write it.

So I did the unthinkable.  I emailed Dr. Klein, explained my situation, and asked for an extension.

Dr. Klein quickly responded, telling me to take the time that I needed, letting me know when grades were supposed to be turned in to the school, assuring me that I was doing what was needed, and holding me and my family in prayer.  All my life I had been the one who went to work first and grumbled about the “slackers,” but if my classmates hadn’t received extensions before me, I might not have either, and my last weeks with my grandmother would have been marred with the extra stress of schoolwork.

It was easy to complain about the ways that school wasn’t fair, until I couldn’t complain anymore.

In today’s parable we encounter the lord of the vineyard, who cares more for what is just than what is fair.  We don’t know why the workers hired later in the day didn’t find work earlier, except that at 5 o’clock the householder asks, “Why are you standing here all day without work?” and the workers respond with “Because no one has hired us.”

Maybe the workers have to care for children or elderly family before looking for work.  Maybe they walked from the next town over, where they had been passed over for work.  Maybe they can’t walk well and so didn’t get hired by others. 

All we know is that no one has hired them and as day laborers, they need to work every day to provide for themselves and their family.  If they don’t, people will go hungry.  And the lord of the vineyard hires them.  They do the work they are able to do and instead of his profit margin, the householder pays attention to the needs of the workers and the community.  He knows that every worker needs a denarius—the daily wage—to make ends meet, and so he gives them a denarius for their wage—the deal he made with the first workers hired.

The workers work as they are able and the lord of the vineyard pays them according to need.  He is genuinely concerned for their well-being.  And when the early workers grumble, he says, “Friend, I am not unjust to you.”

Jewish New Testament theologian, Amy-Jill Levine, points out that in the gospel of Matthew, “friend” is used three times, and each time it holds a dual meaning.  Here in this parable, in the parable of the Wedding Banquet which we’ll hear in a couple of weeks, and in Gethsemane when Jesus says to Judas, “Friend, do what you are here to do.”

When the lord of the vineyard says, “Friend, I am not unjust to you,” it is both an ironic jab, poking at the ways the assumptions about who “deserves” a livable wage and what counts as “fair” isn’t always what is just.  And, friend also reinforces that the lord of the vineyard and the worker are in relationship with each other.  They are connected, just as the workers are connected to each other.

The well-being of each of person involved matters.  The ability to earn a denarius each day, negotiated by the first workers for the benefit of all the workers, is important because of the relationship and interdependence they experience.

The Lord of the Vineyard grants the extensions we need, provides the collective wage that is needed, and holds us in relationship together.  This relationship of care and concern for each other allows us to be challenged as God says, “I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”  

God is just and generous and as Jesus calls us to follow him, he invites us into this just and generous way of life as well.

Thanks be to God.

God's forgiveness is bigger: 15th after pentecost a

El santo evangelio según san Mateo (18:21-35)

²¹Then Peter came and said to Jesus,

      “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me,

            how often should I forgive?

                  As many as seven times?”

²²Jesus said to him,

      “Not seven times,

            but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

      ²³“For this reason the dominion of heaven may be compared to a ruler

            who wished to settle accounts with their servants.

            ²⁴When the ruler began the reckoning,

                  one who owed ten thousand talents was brought in;

                  ²⁵and, as the one could not pay,

                        their ruler ordered them to be sold,

                              together with their spouse and children

                                    and all their possessions,

                        and payment to be made.

                  ²⁶So the servant fell on their knees before the ruler,

                        saying, ‘Have patience with me,

                              and I will pay you everything.’

                  ²⁷And out of pity for the servant,

                        the ruler of that servant released them and forgave them the debt.

                        ²⁸But that same servant, as they went out,

                              came upon one of their fellow servants

                                    who owed them a hundred denarii;

                              and seizing them by the throat,

                              they said, ‘Pay what you owe.’

                                    ²⁹Then the fellow servant fell down and pleaded with them,

                                          ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’

                                    ³⁰But the servant refused;

                                          then they went and threw them into prison

                                                until they would pay the debt.

                              ³¹When their fellow servants saw what had happened,

                                    they were greatly distressed,

                                    and they went

                                    and reported to their ruler all that had taken place.

                  ³²Then the ruler summoned the servant and said to them,

                        ‘You wicked servant!

                              I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.

                              ³³Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant,

                                    as I had mercy on you?’

                        ³⁴And in anger the ruler handed the servant over to be tortured

                              until they would pay the entire debt.

                              ³⁵So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you,

                                    if you do not forgive your sibling from your heart.”

El evangelio del Señor.

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At face value, Peter’s question is pretty benevolent.  As we heard last week, Jesus just laid out the steps for conflict mediation within the community of faith (talk to the person directly, if they don’t listen, then bring in a 3^rd party witness, then involve the whole community of faith, and so on) and so Peter wants to know the bounds of this reconciliation business.

Having learned a thing or two in his time with Jesus and being pretty generous, Peter asks, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”  7 being the number for wholeness and completeness, 7 times          is a lot of forgiving.

As usual, Jesus hears what we would consider pretty impressive in the realm of forgiveness and takes it to a whole new level. “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”  77 or, depending on the translation, 7 times 70 times!!  That’s a ridiculous amount of forgiveness!!

And then Jesus dives into a parable, or riddle, of even more extravagant proportions.  This riddle dives deep into the economic workings of society that Jesus’ rural, peasant followers could only ever dream of experiencing, it’s like the millionaires’ club.

So what is the reality that this riddle exposes?

The economic system of Jesus’ time was an entrenched bureaucracy.  New Testament theologian William R. Herzog II describes it in detail.  The ruler of the parable would be the highest regional authority.  Answerable only to Rome.  When Jesus was born, the ruler would have been the same King Herod that killed all the infants and toddlers in Bethlehem.

The responsibility for making sure (1)Rome received the tribute it wanted, (2)all rebellions were immediately quelled—if not prevented, and (3)the bureaucracy—made up of various levels of elite “servants” constantly jockeying for position, power, and wealth—remained intact, competitive, and functioning, all rested with this one ruler.  If there was a breakdown in this system, all hell could break loose and the ruler would be to blame.

As the system was set up, beneath the ruler were various levels of bureaucratic servants who were responsible for collecting tributes from people and communities.  These bureaucrats would collect money and resources from peasants and local and regional rulers—often taking some extra for themselves—and then pass it up through various levels of servants with increasing access, wealth, and power—each skimming a bit off the top.  Given the right circumstances, a servant could be toppled and a lower one take their place, so positions were both hard-fought-for and precariously kept.

The servants had a fair amount of freedom to do their work collecting money and tributes, but also had to be ready to give an account when asked about their money and resources.  Add into this that the ruler’s word was law and subject to changing at the ruler’s whim, and the more money a servant dealt with, the more delicate or threatened their position.

So when the ruler brings the servants in to give account, the highest up servant goes first, owing ten thousand talents.  Now at that time, the highest denomination of money was a talent, a good year’s worth of wages, and the highest number that they had language for was 10,000, so this servant in this riddle is literally dealing with the most wealth imaginable!  It would be like 100 trillion dollars today—more than any government could ever owe or pay, like 70 times 7 times as much perhaps ;)

So this servant is brought before the ruler with a ridiculously high financial capital and as the ruler is getting ready to throw their whole family into debtors’ prison, the servant begs for mercy.

Perhaps the ruler realizes how much hardship the economic system causes, or maybe they are just fond of this particular bureaucrat.  For whatever reason, the ruler forgives the debt, an act of mercy that could start a change in the system, could add more generosity and understanding, could make forgiveness of debt to those who are worse off a thing of honor rather than weakness.  Could shift the honor balance in this honor-shame culture.

Unfortunately, the ruler doesn’t explain all of this to the servant, so the servant, who feels like they’ve been shamed—which carries a ton of weight in the culture—feels compelled to double down in the game of cutthroat bureaucracy.

Enter servant two.  On a much smaller scale, though still extravagant to Jesus’ rural peasant listeners, this second servant owes the recently forgiven one 100 denarii, three months’ salary.  This one who was recently forgiven still has their position, but their power is under threat after the encounter with the ruler.  They know they look weak and have to find a way to fix it, so they take action in the only way they know how: exerting their power on the one with less.  This will show everyone that they are still capable, strong, and in charge…or so they think.

Other servants who notice are angry at the double standard and report to the ruler, perhaps recognizing this as their chance to move up in the bureaucracy.  And so the reality of the parable—and life—settles in.  Even if the peasants hope in a messianic-style benevolent ruler to be kind and generous—a king, like David was, perhaps—the reality is that without immense change, the ruler is as stuck in the system as the bureaucratic servants who peasants know exploit them.   

So when the ruler tries a new tact, tries to cultivate generosity, it backfires and the result is worse than the original consequences of the servant’s actions.  Instead of the whole family and all their possessions being sold into debtors’ prison, the servant faces torture.

Forgiveness and generosity are not built into the system under which Jesus and his followers live.  And this system of tit-for-tat, continued on, will never end well.  Keeping track of debts and sins will only get us to an idea of a God, found in the final verse, who is willing to hand us over to torture if we don’t pay every debt and forgive every sin. 

When we hear this parable—this riddle—we puzzle about what the truth is that it is pointing us to and within the context, where is or isn’t God?

The riddle points us to the flaw of a system that keeps track of every wrong, every overcharge or bounced check, every debt, every sin.  That is not the way God works because God’s love and forgiveness are bigger than that.  But if that is how we operate, then we are bound to believe in the God of the final verse who exacts revenge and torture in the ultimate tit-for-tat of life.  If 10,000 talents was as big as people could think in Jesus’ time, it is like Peter’s 7.  It’s a lot, but it is nothing compared to God, who is 70 times 7 times as forgiving and whose forgiveness doesn’t fit into our systems.

This forgiveness focuses on those with more power forgiving those with less.  It is not         an exhortation for the powerless to continue to put up with abuse or forgive their abuser or those with power.  It’s about what we do with the power we have and how we live into God’s forgiveness and generosity in our own lives.

How is forgiveness and generosity at work within us?  How does God’s forgiveness flow over all that we could possibly have done wrong?  How does it flow over all those with whom we are still angry?  How does God’s forgiveness and generosity change our understandings of justice, love and worthiness?

If God's love flows over you 70 times 7 times more than you can imagine, how is God's love flowing over others as well?  If we flood the system with God's love and forgiveness, will it finally change?  Is God's love big enough?

Love fulfills the law: 14th after pentecost a

Romans 13:8-14

⁸Owe no one anything,

      except to love one another;

            for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

⁹The commandments,

      “You shall not commit adultery;

      You shall not murder;

      You shall not steal;

      You shall not covet”;

      and any other commandment,

            are summed up in this word,

                  “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

                        ¹⁰Love does no wrong to a neighbor;

                              therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

¹¹Besides this, you know what time it is,

      how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.

            For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;

            ¹²the night is far gone,

                  the day is near.

            Let us then lay aside the works of darkness

                  and put on the armor of light;

                  ¹³let us live honorably as in the day,

                        not in reveling and drunkenness,

                        not in debauchery and licentiousness,

                        not in quarreling and jealousy.

                              ¹⁴Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ,

                                    and make no provision for the flesh,

                                          to gratify its desires.

The other reading referenced is Matthew 18:15-20.

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Much of this week could be characterized as a failure to love.  Echoing Jesus’ words, Paul writes in Romans, “the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”  If love is the fulfillment of the law, then a law ought to be judged on its enactment of love.

Committing adultery—cheating on someone else—is not loving because it neither respects nor honors that one.  Killing—the violent taking of life of another—is not love because it neither respects nor honors that one.  Stealing is not love because it neither respects nor honors that one.  Coveting—jealously wanting what is not ours—is not love because it neither respects nor honors that one above the things they possess.

Love does not mean that we cannot disagree, but it does frame our conversations differently.  Love does not permit dehumanizing another person or group of people through the use of name-calling and slurs.  Love does not say, “those people.”  Love challenges us when we say “those people.”  Love challenges us when we are cruel or careless.  Love talks about issues that matter, even at the risk of making us or others uncomfortable.  Oftentimes, love is shared in stories about and with the people we love.

Love talks about conflict, disappointment, and disagreement.  We wrestle together in disagreements because we do, in fact, love each other.  We tell each other when we are upset because we want to be in good, loving relationship with each other and we can’t when we’re not honest about things that matter.  Love brings us together to challenge and to be challenged.

When Paul says that the commandments “are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law,” he sets a different standard for us.  When love does no wrong and love fulfills the law, the conversations we have are different.

There is a lot of space for disagreement about policy, but the test of a law or policy, whether locally, nationally, or internationally is if it furthers love: honor, respect, dignity.

Does repealing DACA, a bill protecting and supporting those who came to this country as children without papers, further love?  How is it loving to send someone away from a country they call home?  You all know that there is nothing loving about deportation.  The fear and anxiety it causes are not love.  The families that will be broken apart lose out on love.

Love cares for others.  Love helps families stay together—stay in this country we call home.  Love respects and honors each person’s humanity.  Love provides and cares for each person, sheltering them when they are in danger.  Love challenges rhetoric and actions of hate and racial bias, even when it’s done by a neighbor or stranger here in town.

Love holds us to higher standards.  Love decries the prospect of Mutually Assured Destruction because the lives of people in our country and in other countries matter and because the best way to keep troops and people safe is to not start a war.  Love does not kill.  Love does not bomb.

Paul, who is writing to followers of Christ in the powerful Roman Empire, writes, “you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; ¹²the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” 

Now is the time.  Love is the way.

Love is the fulfilling of the law, as Paul writes, and it is hard.  Love is not easy or quick or painless.  We know the pain of losing someone we love, whether through death or geography or through relationships broken beyond repair.

In baptism, Love digs deep into our hearts and lays down strong roots.  That’s why it can hurt so much to lose someone we love.  But that’s also how we get to live out the love that grows up and out of those roots, bearing good fruit, bearing love. 

Love is what we need right now.  We need the kind of love that brings compassion back into immigration policies, that keeps Dreamers and immigrants safe and in this country we call home, that puts human faces on policies and budgets and programs—humanizing those others try to demonize.  We need the kind of love that is appalled by war, violence, and threats of mass destruction.  We need the kind of love that values diversity in language, race, and culture.

Paul writes that “salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.”  Salvation is not for us individually; it is not a personal, private thing.  Salvation is communal.  Salvation is Love actually reigning over every part of life and every interaction.  Love gets us through the struggles together.  Love doesn’t leave people to fend for themselves.  Love isn’t neutral.  Love picks a side.  Love picks the side of love—of caring for humanity and creation, of dignity, of honor, of respect.

Love enacts salvation.

Thanks be to God.

Jesus bears the cross no matter what: 13th post-pentecost a

The holy gospel according to Matthew (16:24-28)

²⁴Then Jesus told his disciples,

      “If any want to become my followers,

            let them deny themselves

            and take up their cross and follow me.

                  ²⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it,

                  and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

                        ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world

                              but forfeit their life?

                         Or what will they give in return for their life?

      ²⁷“For the Son of Humanity is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father,

            and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.

      ²⁸Truly I tell you,

            there are some standing here who will not taste death

                  before they see the Son of Humanity coming in his dominion.”

El Evangelio del Señor.

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The cross has become such an important symbol in Christianity that we have crosses in our places of worship, we wear them as necklaces, earrings, and religious wear, we tattoo them on our bodies and place them on our walls. 

But this comfort with the cross can make it unclear for us when Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Sometimes we think the cross Jesus is talking about is an illness or an inconvenience we’re dealing with or an abusive relationship or injustice.  The cross proliferates in our country and culture and yet in the Early Church—the first few centuries during which Christianity began to take shape, the idea of wearing a cross would have been appalling.

One main symbol for Christianity at the time was an anchor, representing the hope and peace found in Christ.  In the midst of persecution, the anchor was a reminder of the anchoring people had in their faith in Christ. 

The ichthus was another important symbol for Christianity.  The word ichthus, meaning “fish,” has come to stand for “Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτήρ", meaning, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.” The ichthus was used particularly in the Early Church to identify fellow Christians.  If you encountered somebody and wanted to know if they were Christian, you could draw a curved line in the sand with your foot.  It wouldn’t stand out on its own, but if the other person was also a Christian, they would draw a curved line from their perspective and together they would make an ichthus.  Then you would both know each other and the evidence could be quickly erased.

This was key because the Early Church, the initial followers of the Way, before Emperor Constantine’s conversion, were persecuted.  Their lives were literally at stake.  The cross was a weapon—the ultimate weapon—of the Roman Empire.  If anyone tried to rebel—even just a rumor of revolt was enough for Roman soldiers to arrest and crucify the people of first century Palestine. 

The way crosses work is that people who were crucified, would be unable to breathe if they couldn’t hold up their body weight.  So, in order to breathe, they would have to push up with their legs and pull up with their almost certainly dislocated shoulders, causing excruciating pain, to gulp a breath of air before slumping back down.  In this way, the life of a crucified person could drag out for days.  The crosses themselves would be lined up along the road as a visceral visual reminder of the cost of rebelling against the Roman Empire. 

This didn’t stop with the resurrection, and the early followers of the Way frequently found themselves victims of this state-sanctioned violence, so it would have been unthinkable to use this instrument of torture and death as a symbol for our faith.  It would be the equivalent of the noose from a lynch mob in the twentieth century.

In fact, Black liberation theologian, Rev. Dr. James Cone puts it this way, “The cross and the lynching tree interpret each other.  Both were public spectacles, shameful events, instruments of punishment reserved for the most despised people in society.”[1]

So when Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me,” he’s not talking about the regular burdens of life.  He’s talking about real and horrific instruments of violence and injustice.  This is the theology of the cross—that God in Jesus is understood most clearly as the one who takes on the sufferings and injustices of the whole world.

So when Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me,” honestly, I hesitate. 

I want to say no.  Maybe like last week’s Peter I want to say, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to…”…me.  I don’t actually want to take up my cross.  I don’t want to be crucified.

Yet there are so many in this world upon whom the cross is unjustly forced.  Those who do not choose persecution, do not choose suffering and injustice for a larger purpose, and yet are forced to experience it anyway.

Victims of domestic and sexual abuse, communities plagued with violence, families who have to teach their children how not to get shot by police, people forced into sweatshop work throughout the world, people who experience first-hand the devastation of global climate change, people forced into the shadows and silence because of documentation status, people with no shelter under which to lay their head, people living in situations of poverty.

These life circumstances are not God’s will.  This is not what it means to bear your cross.

When you are crucified, you do not choose to take up your cross and follow Jesus, the cross is unjustly forced upon you.  So this choice and invitation that Jesus extends is an invitation to solidarity with those who are being crucified.  An invitation to digging deep into relationships of solidarity and accompaniment with those who have little or no choice about the crosses forced upon them.

And if I’m being honest, a lot of the time I don’t want to take up that cross.  I don’t want that suffering and even when I do take up the cross, I drop it a lot.  I get compassion fatigue, feeling overwhelmed and exhausted just hearing the news and learning about the suffering of the world, to say nothing of trying to figure out what to do to work against the evil plaguing us.  I get distracted.  I get lost in the bubble of our corner of the world.  I get caught up in my own life struggles.

I struggle a lot with the cross.

And that’s ok.  Because Jesus doesn’t ask us to do it perfectly.  Jesus just invites us to join him.  Not because it’s required and not because it is dependent on us, but because, as Aboriginal activist, Lila Watson states, “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is tied up with mine, then let us work together.”  Our liberation is tied up together.  When one person is oppressed, none of us are free.  And so Jesus’ call to take up the cross is a call to struggle with each other, to struggle against the evil in the world, to join the side of those who are oppressed.

And sometimes we even get it right—struggling through the mire of deportation proceedings with someone, holding those in power accountable for death and illness from losing health care—fighting to save health care, getting in the way of violence against others, giving up comfort for the sake of a more sustainable environment. 

We can, however imperfectly, risk taking up the cross to follow Jesus. 

Because no matter what, Jesus will always be there as the Anchor of faith, with the crucified, working for liberation for every single one.  Whether we show up or not.  Whether we are the crucified, in solidarity with the crucified, crucifying them, or just not doing anything to stop it.  Jesus still shows up. 

Jesus always shows up.  Jesus carries the cross to the end and through the end.  Never leaving us behind, but instead journeying through the pain, literally to hell and back for the liberation of all people and all of creation.

Thanks be to God.

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[1] The Crossand the Lynching Tree, p. 160