Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 22A

Matthew 16:21-28

Peter the blockhead is now a stumbling block.

It’s easy for us to laugh at Peter. He is often the voice of the disciples in the gospels, and maybe we recognize something of ourselves in his impulsiveness and desire to please, or in his attachment to playing it safe and staying comfortable.

But Jesus’ rebuke of Peter is no joke.

Having set his face toward Jerusalem (Luke 9), Jesus told the disciples that being the Messiah would mean that he would undergo suffering and be killed. It’s the first of three such predictions in Matthew’s Gospel.

And immediately, Peter responds, “God forbid it, Lord! Say it ain’t so!”

And immediately, Jesus rebukes him, saying, “Get behind me, Satan!”

Addressing Peter this way, Jesus echoes his confrontation with Satan in the wilderness after his baptism. (Matthew 4) There when the Tempter laid traps for him, Jesus said, “Away with you, Satan.”

Maybe Peter thought he was speaking up for Jesus or even protecting him, but what he was really protecting was his own human understanding and ideas about who the Messiah was, what submitting to the Lord should look like and how others should receive Him.

And Jesus calls him out for paying more attention to the human things than to divine things.

Peter proclaimed Jesus as Lord, but the prediction of suffering and death sounded profane to Peter’s ears and he was unable to reconcile how the Messiah, Lord and Savior could also be arrested, tortured and executed. He could not imagine how God could be present in the events Jesus foretold. Surely, there would be triumph and victory, not the cross and crucifixion.

But Jesus’ rebuke is not only a rejection of the temptation to remain in the comfortable and safe company of his disciples and to preserve his own life.

With his words, Jesus put Peter in his place both figuratively and literally. 

When he tells Peter, “Get behind me” Jesus uses the same words he used to call first disciples, saying to them, “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19) and it’s the same words he used to teach discipleship, saying, “[W]hoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:38)[i]

With his rebuke, Jesus reminds Peter that he is a disciple, a follower of Jesus. With his protest, Peter tried to put his own thoughts ahead of God’s ways and stand between Jesus and the calling on his life.[ii]

So Jesus tells him, “Peter, you’ve gotten ahead of yourself, and me.” “Get behind me so that you can follow me.” “Don’t be a stumbling block or obstacle on the Way.”

When we first hear Jesus’ rebuke, the scolding sounds harsh, but Jesus didn’t break off his relationship with Peter. He didn’t send him away. He got his attention, corrected him and called him back to discipleship, back into relationship centered on God’s will.

Listening to Peter and Jesus,

I wonder what I try to protect, thinking I am guarding things of God, when I’m really protecting my own human understanding and ideas. I wonder where I hold on too tight to what God has given me, placing my trust in the gifts instead of the Giver. I wonder, too, where my imagination is so limited that I cannot understand what God is doing.

Public theologian Brian McClaren has said,

the gospel is a transformation plan, not an evacuation plan. It is focused not on airlifting souls to heaven, but on transforming lives so [we] can be agents of God’s will being done “on earth as in heaven.[iii]

I need Jesus to speak into my life and call me out when I fall to the temptation to be a guardian or gatekeeper, or fail to see how God may be doing something entirely new, even if it feels frightening and unpredictable to me. I need Jesus to remind me to follow him and follow God’s will.

I wonder, too, where I fall to the temptation to play it safe and preserve my life or the life of our congregation, instead of following Jesus in suffering for the sake of the world, and where I lose sight of the promise that God is with me.

Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Silence in the midst of evil is evil.” The gospel gives us, as followers of Jesus, an imperative to stand up, speak out and show up — to be witnesses against injustices that are happening in our world, even, or perhaps especially, when it means we will be uncomfortable or unpopular.

These human things — intellectual knowledge and ideas, security and comfort — trick me into following devilish plans and draw me away from God and from following Jesus. [iv]

These human things tempt me to put my self and my thoughts ahead of God’s ways so I can make something happen the way I want it to, instead of trusting that God is present and events will unfold according to God’s will.

Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t walk away from me in all my humanity. Most of the time, he doesn’t even scold me too harshly. 

He patiently and tenderly calls me back to what is Holy, 
reminds me who I am as a beloved child of God, 
as a Jesus’ follower, 
a disciple of this loving and merciful, abundantly gracious Lord and Savior.

Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your Son Jesus who shows us how to serve in the world according to Your Way and thank you for your loving rebuke when we put ourselves ahead of You.
Help us to follow Jesus and trust in Your will even when we cannot make sense of what we see happening;
Thank you for calling us to account when we try to limit Your power and presence in our lives; give us courage and strengthen us to deny ourselves for Your sake.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen.

[i] Audrey West. “Commentary on Matthew 16:21-28.” Luther Seminary. workingpreacher.org

[ii] ibid

[iii] https://brianmclaren.net/

[iv] Joy J. Moore. “Dear Working Preacher.” Luther Seminary. workingpreacher.org

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 21A

Matthew 16: 13-20

Today’s gospel reminds us to listen to the whole biblical narrative with an ear for who gets named, or re-named, and who is left nameless in the background.

Matthew’s gospel gives us lots of opportunities for this kind of listening, beginning with the genealogy of Jesus, which includes, by name, three Canaanite women — women who we learned last week would have been outside the Jewish community. (Matt.1-17) But it’s not only in Matthew; throughout Scripture we hear people renamed by God: Abram is re-named Abraham (Genesis 17:5); Jacob is re-named Israel (Gen. 35:10); and Saul is renamed Paul (Acts 13:9)

And in today’s gospel, after the disciple Simon makes his confession of faith, Jesus renames him Peter, which comes from the Greek petra or rock.

This is the same disciple who a few weeks back nearly sank in the stormy sea and was called out by Jesus for having little faith.

The same Peter who, we know, will not want to hear Jesus tell of his death and resurrection. (Matt. 16:22)

The same Peter who, we know, will want to stay on the mountaintop at the Transfiguration when Jesus is illuminated, and God speaks from the heavens. (Matt. 17)

The same Peter who, we know, will deny Jesus three times at his arrest. (Matt. 26)

This often-reckless, selfish, and imperfect disciple is the one whom Jesus calls “the rock” and says, “I will build my church upon you.” (v. 18)

I found myself wondering what Jesus meant. Scholars debate whether Jesus spoke of Peter himself, the foundational confession that Peter makes here, or something else entirely.[i]

During our lectionary study earlier this week, one of my colleagues called Peter “Peter the blockhead.” Maybe you remember that “blockhead” was a favorite insult by the Peanuts gang in the comic by Charles M. Shulz. Lucy calls Charlie Brown a blockhead and his teammates pile on him, blaming him for losing the baseball game. His little sister Sally calls Linus a blockhead for ruining her Halloween. Calling someone a blockhead was another way of saying, “You got it all wrong.”[ii]

The image of “Peter the blockhead” being the rock upon which the Church is built has stuck with me, precisely because sometimes Peter got it all wrong, and Jesus loved him anyway.

Reflecting the meaning of the metaphor, another pastor described her family’s experience of trying to build rock cairns, the stacked towers of stones that you can find in all different places, built for all different reasons. I’ve seen them near mountain trails and in rivers, signposts that a place has meaning. In their attempts to build cairns, two things stood out to her; first, despite their appearances, the rocks didn’t have any perfectly flat surfaces, which made it really difficult to stack them evenly and keep them from slipping and tumbling over. And second, she confessed that trying to find ways to balance them tested her family’s patience and they gave up. [iii]

Like those precarious rock cairns, the Church that we have today is filled with its own imperfections and rough edges and sometimes it feels like it wouldn’t take much to make it come tumbling down.  There are gaps where the gospel that we proclaim doesn’t match up with the witness of our lives. And sometimes it is enough to cause us to lose patience, throw up our hands in frustration and even want to give up and walk away.

But God doesn’t give up. Not on Peter and not on us.

God is still here among all of us imperfect, rough-around-the-edges people. In fact, God calls us “precious living stones” (1 Peter 2:5) and works through us to build the Church that we may continue to tell the world how much God loves us all.

A third image comes from earlier in Matthew 7, in a part of the Sermon on the Mount that we didn’t get to hear this year; it’s where Jesus says,

24 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  25 The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.  (Matt. 7:24-25)

Too often, in our sin, in our self-centered failure to trust God, and our temptation to listen to lies and evil that would destroy what is given by God, we question why God would try to build anything with us or entrust this life-giving Gospel to us. But God is a God of wisdom, not foolishness, and God has built on rock, a solid foundation grounded in faith.

In The Message translation of this passage, Eugene Peterson writes that Jesus told Simon, “I’m going to tell you who you really are.” Who you really are in God’s eyes. Not who others say you are, not who you appear to be on your clumsiest or least grace-filled day, but who God says you are. There are times when we are blockheads. There are times when we stumble and fall down or get knocked down. But the God who loves us sees all of our imperfections, knows our sins before we even commit them, and forgives us abundantly.

The ekklesia or Church is the community united by faith in this Good News, in God’s saving action for each one of us. And Jesus has placed the Church into our hearts and hands, that our neighbors and community would know it too.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your Son Jesus who sees us and calls us by name. Thank you for your abundant grace that sees our imperfections and the works through us anyway.
Teach us to trust your wisdom and share your Good News that our neighbors will know Your love.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen.

[i] Audrey West. “Commentary on Matthew 16:13-20.” Workingpreacher.org.

[ii] There is even a book published in the 1960s called The Gospel According to the Peanuts; the author Robert Short was a Presbyterian minister and Lutheran pastor Martin Marty wrote the foreword.

[iii] “A stack of rough stones.” Liddy Barlow, “Sunday’s Coming,” The Christian Century.

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 20A

Matthew 15:10 - 28

I almost didn’t read the first part of today’s gospel. The Revised Common Lectionary suggests that verses ten to twenty are optional, and certainly there is plenty to chew on in the story of the Canaanite woman’s encounter with Jesus.

But hearing all of it together, I think, helps us remember the biblical narrative is not just a series of patchwork events stitched together. It is instead a whole cloth quilt, that invites us to see a fuller vision of God’s love for us.

In the first part of this chapter, Jesus is talking with the religious leaders about the traditions and rules dictated by their faith. In verse 8, he quotes the prophet Isaiah to them, convicting them of honoring God with their lips but keeping their hearts far away from God. (Matthew 15:8)

When our gospel reading begins, the disciples come to Jesus, asking, “"Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?" (Matt. 15:12) This week, I heard another pastor say, “Sin cannot stand to be named or confronted.”[i] Let me say that again:

“Sin cannot stand to be named or confronted.”[ii]

When we react with offense at Jesus’ own words, we need to stop and reflect on what is provoking that emotion within us.

Jesus wasn’t surprised that he had offended the religious leaders, and he wasn’t apologetic. Instead, he answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.” (Matt. 15:13)

His words recall the parables of the sower and weeds and wheat that were in our gospel lessons earlier in the summer.

God did not plant sin in this world. Sin is not of God. It is like wild kudzu that grows unchecked out of our “self-centered failure to trust God.”[iii]

In Compline at the end of the day, our prayer of confession states, “Some of my sin I know – the thoughts and words and deeds of which I am ashamed – but some is known only to you.”[iv]

Insidiously, sin entwines itself around our hearts and chokes our hearts, hardening them against God.

I am grateful that confession prompts me to ask, “What needs to be uprooted in my life?” and “Where does my heart remain far away from God?”

Puzzled by the newest parable, Peter asks Jesus to explain, and Jesus answers,

“17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.  19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. (Matt. 15:17-19)

Faith and discipleship – following Jesus – is heart work.

The story of the Canaanite woman shows us a Jesus whose heart needs some work. At first Jesus doesn’t even respond to the woman’s plea for mercy and then, when he does respond, he scorns and insults her.

We want to come up with a reasonable explanation for his callousness. Jokingly, we might wonder if Jesus was “hangry,” tired and hungry from long days of ministry.

We want the Jesus who felt compassion for the crowds or had healed lepers and paralytics. We want the Jesus who is above reproach. But when we proclaim Jesus is both fully divine and fully human, we must be willing to see the fullness of his fallibility and humanity. His prejudice, name-calling and seeing the woman as “less-than-human” all comes from his heart.

When Matthew calls the woman a Canaanite, she becomes the archetype for the “other” or a “foreigner”, the very kind of person considered unclean and unwelcome by the Pharisees earlier in this chapter. And then, Matthew adds the woman’s confession that her daughter is demon-possessed, marking them both as untouchable, undesirable and unworthy.

And at first, that appears to be how not only the disciples, but even Jesus, see them.

Despite the mother calling him “Lord” three times and crying out to him for mercy and help, her ability to use all the ‘right’ words and even prostrate herself on the ground before him, Jesus appears unmoved. The disciples just want her to shut up and go away.

It sure looks like they all were behaving in exactly the same ways as the leaders Jesus had rebuked earlier.

Their hard-heartedness makes me ask, “Who are the “Canaanite women” in my life - the people I can ignore because I’ve been taught they aren’t worth my time?

But the Canaanite woman doesn’t give up. She trusts who she has heard this Jesus is. She trusts what she knows he has done in the name of God. And, she believes that God’s mercy is wide and deep enough to include her daughter and her.

And in the end, Jesus responds to her witness of faith.

A teacher once told me, “What you see depends a great deal on where you sit.” This woman’s experience illustrates that “Jesus does not always come through for us as we expect. Inside this story and inside our own stories, Jesus does not always conform to what we hope for.” And Matthew leaves us wondering, “How do we respond honestly and reengage our faith when Jesus does not come through for us as we expect? [v]

The woman persists even when she would have rightfully been defeated by her circumstances and the hateful actions and words directed at her.

And, the Good News is the woman was right.

God’s life-saving mercy is abundant and it is for all. Jesus comes alongside us, the Son of God in the flesh, and shows us a better way, a way where our hearts are not choked off but draw near to God and all of God’s people.

Committing  to the same “heart work” we see Jesus do, let us pray with the words of Jesuit priest, St. Claude La Colombière:[vi]

O God, what will you do to conquer 
the fearful hardness of our hearts?

Lord, you must give us new hearts,
tender hearts, sensitive hearts,
to replace hearts that are made of marble and of bronze.

You must give us your own Heart, Jesus.
Come, lovable Heart of Jesus.

Place your Heart deep in the center of our hearts
and enkindle in each heart a flame of love
as strong, as great, as the sum of all the reasons
that I have for loving you, my God.

O holy Heart of Jesus, dwell hidden in my heart,
so that I may live only in you and only for you,
so that, in the end, I may live with you eternally in heaven.
Amen.

[i] Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson

[ii] Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson

[iii] Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson

[iv] Compline, Evangelical Lutheran Worship.

[v] Bartlett, David L.; Taylor, Barbara Brown. Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Feasting on the Word: Year A volume) (Kindle Locations 12122-12124). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.

[vi] Hearts on Fire (St. Louis, MO:Institute of Jesuit Sources 1993) p54.

 

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 19A

Matthew 14:22-33

In Matthew 8 the disciples are on the Sea of Galilee when a storm whips up and nearly swamps the boat they are sailing, and Jesus nearly sleeps through the commotion. When they wake him and call out to him, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” he says to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” And Matthew tells us, “Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm.”

And now in Matthew 14, after healing the sick and teaching about the kingdom of heaven, after the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, we have another sea tale.

Matthew tells us that, after the people were fed and satisfied, Jesus went off on his own and the disciples set sail, planning to cross to the other side. But this time, it isn’t a storm that frightens the disciples. Matthew says the boat was battered by waves, so they were probably exhausted and soaked through and through, but they weren’t afraid of the sea this time. They only cried out in fear when they saw Jesus walking on the sea toward them.

While the translation we just read says these events took place early in the morning, the Greek is more exact, saying it was the fourth watch of the night, which is between 3 and 6 a.m. Most of us would probably call it the wee hours of the night, not early morning.  

About fifteen years ago, I was on the crew of a boat sailing from Annapolis, Maryland to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and I remember taking a fourth watch. Even with modern running lights, electronic instruments, and lighthouse beacons, it’s dark at night on the open water.

At that hour, you aren’t expecting to see much of anything, so it’s no wonder that in the midst of the fog and shifting shadows of those wee hours, the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost.  

But I don’t want to just sail past that detail. The disciples have just spent days with Jesus, soaking in his teaching; watching his compassion and love for suffering and hungry people and learning from him. They had shared the abundance of God’s goodness with the crowds less than twelve hours before, but now they do not recognize him.

If we are honest, we know we often don’t fare a lot better. We worship together, hear Scripture, offer our confession and receive forgiveness, pray and praise God for all God gives us, and yet, in an instant, when we become frustrated, angry, or afraid, we forget everything we know about God and who we are as God’s children.

It’s likely that, in their uncertainty, the disciples reverted to their base instincts, and seized onto what they had been taught about the sea - that it is threatening, a place of chaos, representing all the anxieties, powers and principalities that threaten the good of created order. Operating from that space, they thought what they were seeing must be an apparition and perhaps it had been sent to them by one of those destructive forces. Is it any wonder they cried out?

The experience of miracle and wonder from the day before was lost. As were any of the comforting words Jesus had spoken earlier to them, when he told them, “the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:31)

They became afraid and, in their fear and anxiety, they could not recognize the very presence of God with them in Jesus.

Matthew says, “Immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." (Matt. 14:27)

Again, the Greek is more specific than the English. What Jesus says is ἐγώ εἰμι  ̶  “I am”, the very same words that God spoke to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses to reveal to them that God was with them.

Immediately, Jesus reminds them of a Gospel truth that is more enduring than anything they have been taught about earthly things. They are not alone. The God of Israel, the same God who delivered their ancestors from slavery under Pharaoh and exile in Babylon is with them.

This isn’t a remote God in the farthest heavens. This is God within arm’s reach. Right there in the soup with them.

So first Jesus reminds them who God is – Emmanuel, God with us - and then he commands them, “take heart” or “be of good courage.”

Karoline Lewis writes that “the root meaning of the English word “courage” is the Latin cor and the French couer [cuur] or “heart” which may explain why the English translations vary.”[i] The two other places where Matthew includes this command are when Jesus, speaking to the paralytic brought to him laying on a mat (9:2), says, “Take heart, your sins are forgiven.” And when he healed the hemorrhaging woman who had touched his cloak, saying, “Take heart, your faith has made you well.” (9:22)

Faith is never just an intellectual exercise; it is always a matter of the heart.

The Good News for us today is that the same God, the same “I am” who delivered our ancestors, and who lived among us in the flesh as Jesus, is right here with us today:

in the fifth month of a pandemic that has asked us all to stay safer at home and wear masks to reduce the spread of the virus;
in the disruption of businesses and employment;
in the uncertainty for students, teachers, parents and administrators preparing for a new school year.
In the boredom and exhaustion, and in the fear and unanswered questions, God is with us through it all.

This story of the disciples does makes me ask though, where has my uncertainty and fear kept me from seeing God’s presence in my life and in the world around me? When have I forgotten that I have witnessed God’s good in the world?  

As we go about our lives this week, may we experience Jesus’ words for us: “Be of good courage, beloved,” God is right here, within arm’s reach.”

Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your forgiveness and mercy even when obstacles keep us from seeing you and we forget how near you are.
Thank you for your Son Jesus who shows us your steadfast presence and love.
Open our hearts to the good we witness in the world and show us where we can participate in your kingdom even now.
We pray in the name of your Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus.
Amen.  

[i] Karoline D. Lewis. “Dear Working Preacher”, Luther Seminary.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 18A

Matthew 14:13-21

I’ve been preaching on Paul’s letter to the Romans for most of the summer, so I want to take a minute now to re-orient ourselves to the gospel narrative that leads up to today’s reading from Matthew. Jesus has been traveling and teaching, both with his disciples and with great crowds. He has been teaching in stories, or parables, about the kingdom of heaven, comparing it to a mustard seed, seeds sown in different soils, a field where both weeds and wheat grow and then to yeast mixed into unleavened dough, a hidden treasure, a pearl of great value and a fisherman’s net filled with fish of every kind.

And while he has been teaching, his cousin John has been imprisoned by Herod. And now word has come to Jesus that John has been executed, beheaded, and is dead. That is where we are when we enter today’s text which has Jesus going off to a deserted place by himself.

You can probably imagine a time when you heard the news of a death of someone you loved and recall the emotional and physical exhaustion that accompanies grief. That is where Jesus was when we encounter him in this text.

And yet, when Jesus saw the crowds following him, he didn’t send them away. Instead, Matthew says he had compassion for them and he cured their sick. (v. 14)

Maybe Jesus recognized that they weren’t trying to be a nuisance or just tagging along because they could. They were hungry, for healing and for food. And those hungers were worth the risk of being identified as followers of Jesus,

whose coming had been proclaimed by his cousin,
who had now been killed by the state.

We don’t experience the kind of persecution that Christians experienced in the first century so it’s easy for us to underestimate the cost of following Jesus. In the hills and valleys of Israel, his followers would have been exposed and visible.

But their desire to draw near to Jesus and satisfy their hungers were greater than any fears they may have had about being singled out as a follower of the King of the Jews or seen by Roman soldiers as traitors to the empire.

While the historical context of this passage is important, often a sermon will focus on the wondrous multiplication of loaves and fish that made it possible to feed thousands of people.

But what stood out to me in this morning’s Gospel wasn’t the feeding of the crowds, or even the earlier healings, as miraculous as those events were. What stood out to me was Jesus’ instructions to his disciples.

The disciples had noticed the time and knew it would soon be suppertime. They didn’t have enough to satisfy the crowd, so they went to Jesus and telling him about their meager fish and loaves of bread, they suggested he send the people away that they might find provisions for themselves.

They weren’t being callous. Just practical. And perhaps they were protective of Jesus. Do you remember how the day had begun? With the news of his cousin’s brutal death? If he had sent the crowds away, do you think anyone would have said he hadn’t done enough?

But, he didn’t send them away. Instead, looking at the meager loaves and fish, Jesus tells the disciples, “Bring them here to me.” And he blesses them, breaks them and gives them out to all who hunger, and they are satisfied.

There is a church in Israel where it’s believed this story happened. And in that church there’s a mosaic that has an image of two fish and a basket with four loaves in it. When a visitor asked where the fifth loaf was, the reply was, “On the altar of every church across the world.”

Discipleship is never centered on us as disciples, or what we can do. Following Jesus is always about what God is doing. God is always the actor. And God is always bigger than we can imagine or understand.

The Good News is that we are invited to bring all of our broken bits and pieces to God.

“Bring them to me.”

The broken relationships. “Bring them to me.”

The disappointments and half-finished projects and forgotten promises. “Bring them to me.”

The hurts that we have caused others or inflicted on ourselves. “Bring them to me.”

The fears, insecurities and grief. “Bring them to me.”

God doesn’t care how meager these bits and pieces seem, or how little value you think they have. Bring them to God and ask God to use them for God’s kingdom and wait expectantly for what God will do.

Out of these broken bits and pieces, God fashions us into God’s people and puts us to work in the kingdom of heaven, where God not only fills empty, rumbling tummies but satisfies the hunger in our lives for a Savior, Redeemer and Lord.

Thanks be to God.