The sign on the Methodist church carries the sermon title, "Do it in Sebewaing." I haven't talked with Art about what he is doing, but keeping with my game of stealing his title, I can see how it works. The disciples were sent to work the wonders of Christ. As we praise the wonders of God with the psalmist, can we also begin to expect the same wonders done through us, proclaiming the Kingdom!?
This week we boast in what God has done. For he has done amazing things in and through us, things that make us laugh and things that make us cry.
Nowhere is the humor of the Bible more evident than in the scene of Abraham running around taking care of his guests and Sarah laughing at God's promise-joke. But look at what he did! Though they were as good as dead God promised the impossible and ridiculous.
"I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live." The thanksgiving of the psalmist's heart fits. God is a doer of wonders.
"Therefore," says Paul. Look at all that God has done, ridiculous and wonderful. While we were enemies God loved, Christ died, and grace came! And not only the wonderful, but the ridiculous, we boast in our sufferings. Peace, Grace and God's Love poured in our hearts.
Jesus was a wonderworker in his life too. The Thaumaturge went around healing and teaching. Then he did the ridiculous. He sent the 12 to do the same.
The alternate readings also declare the wonders of God. In Exodus, God tells Moses to recount his mighty deeds in bearing the Israelites on eagles' wings out of Egypt. A more serious side of the wonder is displayed in this track. The Israelites are delivered to freedom and promise, and the Egyptian army delivered to the depths. The psalmist cries out his thanksgiving to a God who, "is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations."
In keeping with this line Paul declares the deliverance offered by the suffering Christ, and Jesus sends harvesters out to the plentiful declaring that deliverance to the kingdom of God is at hand.
