Words of Life

 Words of Life

Psalm 19[1]

You may not know that the American Bible Society has conducted a survey called “The Bible in America Today” every year since 2011. In their survey, they measure adults who use the Bible in some way outside of church. They measure those who believe the Bible impacts their relationship with God and others, and those who make decisions about their life based on the Bible. Up to 2021, the percentage of adults who reported using the Bible outside of church was about 50 percent. Since 2022, that number has dropped to under 40 percent. Ironically, at the same time, many report that their use of the Bible outside of church has increased. That’s not unusual for a survey. What we want to think about ourselves doesn’t always match up with reality.

While the decline in Bible use is bad enough, the survey itself is troubling for several reasons. For one thing, the threshold to qualify as someone who “uses” the Bible outside of church is only three or four times a year. I shudder to think what the survey would report if that threshold were raised to monthly or even weekly! Another result of the survey is that while people are using the Bible to help them with decision-making at about the same level as last year, more adults are reporting that the Bible does not help them feel more connected to God or help them act toward others in more loving ways. That is, the Bible doesn’t help them “love God” or “love their neighbors as themselves.” It’s sad to say, but the report points us to the conclusion that ,, for a majority of Americans, rather than words of life, the words of the Bible for are just dead words on the page of a book that sits largely unused.

For some reason, there’s a significant “disconnect” between what the Bible says about itself and how people in our culture see it. Throughout the ages, people of faith have turned to the Scriptures in times of trouble for guidance, for encouragement, and for strength. And the Bible offers not only the promise that God’s love for us never fails, and that God will never abandon us, but it also offers us insights about living that can help us in the real-life situations we face. We’ve seen some of that in our interactions with Scripture readings on Sunday recently. Especially the readings from Ephesians, which were fairly down to earth and specific. But experience and time have shown us again and again that for us to benefit from the Bible’s wisdom, comfort, and encouragement, we have to actually pick it up and read it on a regular basis.

Our Scripture reading from the Psalms for today addresses this question. The Psalmist views the Scriptures as a source of life, joy, and wisdom. You might find that statement confusing, because the passage actually speaks in praise of “Law of the Lord.” We’re used to thinking of the “Law” in the Hebrew Bible as obsolete at best, and oppressive at worst. You can find New Testament passages where St. Paul speaks of the “Law” as a “dead letter” or as something that only brings condemnation. In fact, however, if you examine St. Paul’s views more closely, I think you’d find him in full agreement with the sentiments expressed in our Psalm for today.

Part of what we have to understand is that the Hebrew word that has traditionally been translated as “law” should probably be rendered as “instruction.” When the Hebrew Bible speaks of the Torah, it means much more than a bunch of rules that might seem irrelevant or burdensome. If you’ve read through that portion of the Bible, you know that there are a lot of rules that actually do seem burdensome or irrelevant. But the Torah is more than that. The Torah in the Hebrew Bible is God’s truth, God’s wisdom, God’s instructions for living. And, as the Psalmist says in our lesson for today, the Torah is not something oppressive, but rather it is a guide that helps us find our way to fulfillment in life. In a very real sense, God’s Torah consists of life-giving words that help us find faith, and hope, and love, comfort, and strength when we feel like our resources are failing. And what this Psalm says about God’s Torah applies to Scripture as a whole, not just a portion of it.

The other significant concept we have to grasp in order to make sense of our Psalm for today is that God’s grace and mercy stand behind everything in Scripture, including the Torah. It’s a common mistake to think that in the days of the ancient Israelites, the “law” taught them what they had to do to get God’s acceptance and love. Many of us have been misled to think that the Torah was the means by which one had to earn salvation through good deeds. Nothing could be further from the truth! The commandments that God gave to the people of Israel were always based on God’s love for them. Their salvation was always based on God’s love for them. Obeying the instructions for living in God’s Torah was the way they demonstrated that God’s love had truly made a difference in their lives.

I think that with those two perspectives in mind, we can better understand what the Psalm for today has to say about God’s Torah. As is often the case, I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message: “The revelation of God is whole and pulls our lives together. The signposts of God are clear and point out the right road. The life-maps of God are right, showing the way to joy.” (Ps. 19:7-8). When you hear it that way, the Psalm clearly points us to God’s Torah in the Bible as our source for life the way God intended it to be. Following God’s way is not something burdensome, but rather it is a gift—it restores us, it grants us wisdom when we’re confused, it brings us joy when we are struggling, it gives us the light we need to find our way, and it gives us strength when we are feeling weak. In a sense, the Bible is a kind of sacrament like the Lord’s Supper. When we read the Bible, we often find ourselves refreshed with a renewed sense of God’s love for us and God’s presence in our lives.

While the 2024 report on “The State of the Bible in America Today” can be discouraging, there are also some hopeful signs. One of the most important is that there was a significant increase in the number of the youngest generation of adults who reported that the message of the Bible had made a difference in their lives. These “Gen Z” adults aged 18-27 are often disparaged by cultural observers who fault them for not doing things the way older generations used to. Perhaps in this case, our youngest adults will lead the way to a resurgence of the Bible’s influence in our lives. But for that to happen, we all will have to stop thinking of the Bible as a sacred relic, and start using it more as a guide for living. When we do, we’ll find that the “words of life” in the Bible are in fact life-giving words!

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[1] © 2024 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 9/15/2024 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Finding Life

Finding Life

Deuteronomy 10:12-22[1]

It’s hard to mention Moses without thinking about the Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments may remind us of Judge Roy Moore. He’s the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who commissioned a 5,000-pound monument depicting the Law of Moses. What you may not know is that “the Rock,” as it has been called, went on tour. That may not seem like a big deal, until you think of what it takes to lug around two-and-a-half-ton sculpture. It rode on a flatbed truck and had to be lifted off and back again with a five-ton, fifty-seven-foot crane!^[2] What a perfect image to portray the commandments as “burdens, weights and heavy obligations,” as one commentator put it.^[3]

That’s how we tend to think of the Ten Commandments, the Law of God, and the Hebrew Bible in general: as a burden. We tend to think that the people of Israel labored under the burden of demands they could never fulfill, trying to win God’s love, trying to earn salvation by their good works. And we see Jesus as the one who set us free from that burden by bringing salvation to us as a gift. As a result, we might be tempted to think that the Ten Commandments, the Law of God, and the Hebrew Bible in general are pretty much irrelevant.

But that’s not what our prophet for the week, Moses, has to say about the matter. We may not be accustomed to thinking of Moses as a prophet, but in the Jewish world, including that of Jesus’ day, Moses was the prophet above all others. He spoke the word of God to the people. In our lesson for today, he begins with a question: “What does the Lord require?” (Deut. 10:12). It’s a straightforward question and at first the answer sounds clear enough: “to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

The problem comes when we read on: “and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being” (Deut. 10:13). That doesn’t compute for us on several levels. Most of us don’t equate “loving God and serving him” with keeping the commandments. But the witness of Scripture is clear that loving and serving God means “walking in all his ways.” Knowing God truly has always made a difference in the way people live out their lives—in every aspect of life.

Part of the reason why our Scripture lesson doesn’t compute for us is because it seems like Moses is saying that finding life depends on what we do. Somehow, it seems that our salvation is a matter of earning God’s love. And yet, Moses specifically says that the Lord chose people to live in relationship with him because he “set his heart in love on your ancestors” (Deut. 10:15). The original covenant with Israel was based on the same love as the new covenant. Keeping God’s commands was never a means of gaining or achieving salvation apart from God’s grace. 

If that’s the case, then why were the commands given at all? Why did Moses insist that the people keep the commandments? While it was never a matter of earning a relationship with God, the commandments were a way of defining what a genuine relationship with God looks like. They spell out in daily practice what it looks like to “walk in all God’s ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” The Bible teaches that it’s a part of God’s original intention for the human family: to lead us into a relationship characterized by love and faith that are not coerced and by heartfelt obedience that puts God’s will into practice in daily living.

I think the final aspect of this passage that doesn’t compute for us is found in the line that keeping the commandments is something that was intended to be “for your own well-being” (Deut. 10:13). They were meant to instruct us about how to find the life that is truly life, the life that God intended for us all to have in the first place. That is the heart of what the Law or Torah was about: instructing us in what it looks like to “walk in God’s ways.” And when we do so, we realize that God’s ways are not burdensome at all, but rather they are paths that show us the way to find life.

We’re not used to talking about the commandments in this way.  We’re much more familiar with talking about them as a burden, a weight, or a heavy obligation—like a 5,000-pound monument made out of Vermont granite.  But that misunderstands their role in God’s purpose for his covenant people, both then and now. The purpose of that covenant is to form a relationship. Not surprisingly, what God looks for is for his people to commit themselves to this relationship wholeheartedly. In that context, the purpose of the commandments is to spell out what it means to live a life defined by love for God. They were given as the parameters within which to live our lives—parameters that are intended to enable us to find a life that is full of living hope, lasting joy, and genuine love, both toward God and others. Elsewhere, Moses calls this way of living “choosing life” (Deut. 30:19-20). As we learn what it means to love God, to serve him wholeheartedly, and to walk in his ways, we find the life that is truly life.

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[1] © 2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 8/5/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Joshua Green, “Roy and his Rock,” The Atlantic Monthly (October 2005);  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/10/roy-and-his-rock/4264/ .

[3] Cf. Thomas G. Long, “Dancing the Decalogue,” in The Christian Century (March 7, 2006):17.

Blessed are the Humble

Blessed are the Humble

Psalm 25:1-10[1]

It seems to me that humility is one of those qualities with which we have a kind of “love-hate” relationship. One the one hand, most of us don’t much care for those who go around constantly beating their own drums. It’s annoying at least and downright offensive at worst! From that perspective, humility is a good thing. But on the other hand, we live in a world where the “meek” definitely do not inherit the earth. Rather, in our culture “Nice guys finish last” and if you don’t take whatever advantages present themselves to you, you miss out. From that perspective, humility is a weakness, not a virtue. I don’t think the phrase “Blessed are the Humble” would find much traction on the nightly news!

But if you pay attention to the Scriptures, you will find a very different story. The God who seems to “hide” as much as he reveals himself is one who reserves that self-disclosure for those who are humble enough to know how much they need God. Jesus praised God for hiding the truth of the kingdom from “from the wise and learned” and revealing them “to little children” (Matt. 11:25). And St. Paul reminds us that God has chosen those who are seen to be “foolish” in this world to “shame the wise” and those who are thought to be weak to “shame the strong” (1 Cor 1:27). The implication is clear: humility is a necessary feature of the Christian life.

I think that’s one of the major points of our lesson from the Psalms for today. The theme of the Psalm is, “Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation” (Ps. 25:4-5). It seems clear that the Psalm is a prayer for God’s instruction. In the context of the Hebrew Bible, that’s a request for God’s torah.^[2]  Now, most of us have labored under the mistaken notion that the Torah was the law, rules from which we have been set free by Jesus.  But the torah is not a set of rules that are intended to bind us.  The torah is God’s instruction for what it means to live in the light of the reality that “the kingdom of God has come near.”^[3] And so this Psalm is a humble prayer acknowledging that we need help to live according to the ways of God’s kingdom.

What it means to live in the light of God’s kingdom is simply this: make God’s ways the guiding orientation to all of life. But what are God’s ways?  The Psalmist answers that question also: “All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ps. 25:10). God’s ways are based on God’s character. According to the Psalm, God is a God of “faithfulness”—which means that God never gives up on relationships; and God is a God of “steadfast love”—which means that God never quits loving us. Based on God’s character, the focus of God’s way is  simply “what is right” (Psalm 25:9). Of course, opinions will vary regarding “what is right.” But again, it is God’s character that defines “what is right” here.  And in the Bible that points to the  compassion and kindness that enables all people to thrive, especially the most vulnerable.^[4]

But this path of living according to God’s kingdom, or living by God’s ways, is not one that comes automatically to us. In order walk this path, we must be taught—taught by God. And in order to be taught, we must have humility. I think it’s important to note that in the Psalm God’s instruction is for those who are humble enough to know that they need it. The Psalm says it this way, “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way” (Ps. 25:9).   Those who are open to God’s way are the ones who are humble enough to realize that they need God in every aspect of their lives.  They are the ones who are humble enough to align their lives with God’s kingdom when it begins to make an appearance. It reminds me of what Jesus said in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God” (Matt. 5:3). I like the way the Message translation puts it: “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” I think that’s the kind of humility we need if we want to learn how to live according to God’s ways. That’s the kind of humility we need to follow the ways of God’s kingdom.

One of the fundamental lessons of Lent is that we are called to live the life of the kingdom of God.  But another of the fundamental lessons of Lent is that we cannot live the life of the kingdom on our own.  The only way we can possibly align our lives with God’s ways is if God “teaches” us. That means being humble enough to recognize that we need God to show us how to live. But being humble enough to seek God’s instruction is a matter of trust—it’s a matter of entrusting ourselves to God’s goodness and steadfast love and faithfulness, and being willing to take the risk of following God’s ways. When we do that, I believe we will discover that the humble truly are blessed.

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[1] ©2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/18/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2]As the Psalmist puts it, God “instructs [torah] sinners in the way” (Psalm 25:8). James L. Mays, Psalms, 127, reminds us that in the context of the Psalms, “the torah of the Lord, his instruction of those who fear him, is part of God’s saving work.”

[3] Mays, Psalms, 126: God’s instruction “is guidance that makes it possible to live in and according to the rule [or Kingdom] of God.”  Cf. also Mays, 98-99, 152, 168, 254-57, 301, 381-84.

[4] Mays, Psalms 311: “Righteousness is the rightness that makes for life and shalom; justice is found in decisions and actions according to righteousness.” 

A Life of Joy

A Life of Joy

Psalm 1[1]

When you look at the way we as a people live these days, I’d say we’re obsessed with happiness. Self-fulfillment is the number one item on most agendas. We are healthier and wealthier than any other generation in the history of the world. So you’d think that would translate into our being the happiest people ever. But the sad reality is that the more we have, it seems like the more unhappy we are. More than that, it seems that we grow more insistent that we know what’s best for us, and that we don’t need anyone or anything—even the Bible—to teach us how to live. When we insist that we know what’s best and refuse let anyone tell us how to live, we’re only digging our ruts deeper.  I would say that approach to life typically doesn’t pay off.

Our Scripture lesson from the Psalms today insists that true happiness, what I would call joy, is found only in one place. The Psalm makes it clear that joy is found only through “delighting” in God’s truth, in God’s instruction found in Scripture.[2] Now, “delight” is a word that we don’t hear much these days, so it may not communicate to us. I would say that “delighting” in God’s truth refers to the practice of spending time every day, in fact “day and night,” reading and studying and thinking about the truths of Scripture. And the reason for this is to be able to live a life that is more closely aligned with God’s will. The outcome of that kind of life, according to our Scripture lesson for today, is true joy.

Now, if you’re like me, you may find yourself wondering about this passage. It makes some pretty big claims. It promises that those who follow this approach to life will not only find true joy, but also “In all that they do, they prosper” (Ps. 1:3). And yet the reality of life is such that there are plenty of people who faithfully align their lives with God’s will but do not seem to prosper, outwardly at least. And we can bear witness to the frustration found in other Psalms that there are plenty of people in this world who live their lives with little or no thought to God’s ways but, outwardly at least, they seem to prosper. Some of them prosper greatly.

So it would seem that we face some obstacles to the way of life prescribed by this Psalm in the realities of our world. For many of us, trying to read the Bible can seem like an exercise in futility. We may start off with all the determination in the world to make devotion to Scripture a regular part of our lives. But when we actually sit down to read the Bible, it can often leave us feeling cold. In fact, it may leave us feeling bored. Let’s face it, the Bible is not an easy book to read, especially in some translations. And there are some passages of Scripture that leave you feeling less than uplifted.

In light of this, what are we to make of the claim our Scripture lesson for today makes? I think we have to start by getting clear about what it is that we’re hoping to gain from a discipline of regular Bible study—day and night, as the text puts it. We may not always understand everything we read, even though we have an abundance of resources available to us. We may not always find that our devotion to Scripture gives us some “takeaway” to help us at the time. But then, that’s not always the way Bible study works.[3] If we expect that every time we read the Bible we’re going to be “blessed” in a specific way, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment. The discipline of studying and meditating on Scripture “day and night” is one that changes our lives over time, as we continue to practice it over weeks and months and years.

I think another aspect of this has to do with the real-life benefits a regular discipline of Bible study. We are a results-oriented people in many ways, and we want to know what we will get if we invest the time to actually engage with Scripture “day and night” as the psalmist suggests. I have to say that it’s unlikely that we will find ourselves understanding all that there is to know about the Bible. There are Bible Dictionaries and Bible Handbooks that can help us here, but we’re not going to emerge as an expert who can answer any question about the Bible. I have a doctorate in biblical studies, and there are plenty of questions about the Bible I can’t answer! Rather, the outcome of this kind of regular engagement with the Scriptures is that it opens us up to the life-giving, transforming presence of God.[4] When we devote ourselves to the discipline of taking in the Scriptures “day and night,” we are connecting ourselves with the true source of life, and well-being, and joy. I think that’s what the promise of “prospering” is about—it’s about knowing true joy in life regardless of our outward circumstances.[5]

I’ll be the first one to admit that making this discipline a regular part of your life is challenging. I’ve spent many years, even decades, seeking to make reading, and meditating on, and praying through the Scriptures a part of my life “day and night.” And I can bear witness that it takes a definite commitment and the will to persevere in order to continue to do this year after year. But I can also bear witness to the fact that when I maintain this discipline, I definitely experience more joy in life than when I let it slip. As our Psalm for today advises us, this is a serious matter.[6] The Bible is not something we read just because we have nothing better to do.  Our Psalm for today warns us that turning from Scripture and living by our own counsel is a way of life that “perishes.” It’s simply not sustainable. But on the other hand, embracing God’s truth with one’s whole heart leads to a life of joy. It’s up to us to decide which path we will take.

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[1] ©2015 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 9/20/2015 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] J. Clinton McCann, Jr., “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible IV:684, where he says that the word typically translated “Law” is the word Torah, and would better be translated as “Instruction.” He says, “‘Instruction’ here refers not to a particular corpus of stipulations, but more broadly to the whole sacred tradition of God’s revelation. It is helpful to recall that the Torah for Judaism—the Pentateuch—contains both stipulations and identity-forming stories of God’s dealings with the world and God’s people.” Moreover, (ibid, 685), he says that the use of the word Torah in this introduction to the Psalms indicates that “the psalms are to be received in a manner analogous to the Pentateuch—that is, as an identity-forming, life-shaping source of God’s instruction.” Cf. also James L. Mays, Psalms, 41: “Here, ‘torah of the Lord’ is used in a comprehensive sense to refer to the whole body of tradition through which instruction in the way and will of the Lord is given to Israel. … This psalmist knows torah in the written form, Scripture that one can read and absorb (see Josh. 1:8). It is from this written torah that wisdom for the living of life can be gained. It is the medium from which one can learn the way and will of the LORD and store up that learning in one’s heart so that it shapes the structure of consciousness (40:9; 37:31).”

[3] As Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.1:123 reminds us, “[the] very fact of the language of God Himself becoming an event in the human word of the Bible is … God’s business and not ours.  … The Bible is God’s Word so far as God lets it be his Word, so far as God speaks through it.” In other words, God speaks to us through the Bible on God’s terms, not ours!  Cf. similarly, Cf. Anthony B. Robinson, What’s Theology Got to Do With It?, 55: “the Word of God is something that occurs when the Spirit and the Scriptures connect in listening and speaking.”

[4] Cf. Mays, Psalms, 41-42: “This is the reason why torah is the cause of delight, not because it is an available instrument of self-righteousness, material for a program of self-justification, but because the LORD reaches, touches, and shapes the human soul through it. For this psalm, torah is a means of grace.” Cf. also McCann, “The Book of Psalms,” NIB IV:684. He says, “In contrast to scoffers who arrogantly refuse all instruction, happy persons delight in God’s instruction, having it always before them. What is commended, therefore, is not a close-minded legalism, but a posture of constant openness to God’s instruction.” Cf. also the now classic R. McAfee Brown, The Bible Speaks to You, 48, where he says that the Bible itself is “a means by which God reveals himself to us, since it is by reading the Bible that we find him confronting us.” Cf. also Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, 23-24: “In our reading of this book we come to realize that what we need is not primarily informational, telling us things about God and ourselves, but formational, shaping us into our true being.” 

[5] Cf. Mays, Psalms, 43-44, were he says that according to this Psalm there are only two ways for life’s journey to take; the way of the righteous “leads to the fulfillment of life” as depicted by the tree which constantly bears fruit. He continues, “The fulfillment is not so much a reward as a result of life’s connection with the source of life. The second way is really an illusion. It has no more substance than chaff that the wind drives away…. The wicked are grounded and guided within themselves, a way that has no connection with the source of life. That way will perish.”

[6] Cf. McCann, “The Book of Psalms,” NIB IV:685. He summarizes the message of the Psalm by saying, “The happy or righteous persons are those who are constantly open to God’s teaching, thus always connected to God, who is the source of life. … The wicked, on the other hand, are those who refuse to attend to God’s teaching, thus cutting themselves off from the source of life. That they ‘perish’ is not so much a punishment, but the inevitable outcome of their own choice not to be related to God. In short, wickedness in Psalms is fundamentally to be self-centered rather than God-centered.” He points out that this understanding of life is one that “differs profoundly” from the typical outlook in our culture. He says (ibid., 687), “What is so unsettling about all of this is that what Psalm 1 and the rest of the psalter call ‘wickedness’ is perhaps what North American culture promotes as the highest virtue—autonomy. … The irony is tragic—the pursuit of self-fulfillment yields self-alienation. … Failing to trust God and to make connection with God as the source of life, persons cannot be ‘happy.’ … In biblical terms, to be autonomous, to be alienated from God and other people, is to ‘perish.’”

From the Heart

From the Heart

Deut. 30:15-20; Matt. 5:21-37[1]

  I’ve mentioned before that I inherited the Brehm family Bible from my Grandfather.  It was given to my Great-Great Grandfather William Brehm and his wife Elizabeth by her parents as a wedding gift.  I find it interesting that the inscription they chose for presenting a Bible to their children for their wedding was John 14:23: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”  But it’s also interesting that this Bible is a version of Martin Luther’s translation.  The fact is that Luther “edited” his version of the Bible, placing books like James and Hebrews at the end because he questioned whether they really fit with the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ.

  You see, Martin Luther originally had a hard time with God, because he believed God to be demanding, a God of justice but not mercy.  He tried every way he knew to live up to the demands of this severe God—even literally beating himself at times.  Finally he discovered that salvation was by grace alone, by faith alone.  Through the lens of that discovery, he began to view the New Testament as “gospel” and the demands of the Hebrew Bible as “law.”  For Luther, it was crucial that Jesus had come to set us free from the “law.”  And he “wrote” this perspective into his translation of the Bible by placing books he didn’t care for at the end.  But Luther wasn’t the first or the last to try to “edit” the Bible.  I think the real problem for us is that what they did on paper, we do in fact.  We simply omit those portions of the Bible from actual use.  I think this tends to apply especially to the “law” with its demands.[2]

  But that’s not really consistent with our lesson from Deuteronomy for today.  The basis for the commandments was the relationship God wanted with the people of Israel, called the “covenant.”  Throughout the Hebrew Bible, God called the people to commit themselves wholeheartedly to this relationship.[3]  The commandments were viewed as a gift that made it possible for the people to align their lives with God’s intention for their life.  In the context of this relationship, the purpose of the commandments was to define human life in terms of loving God.[4] Our lesson from Deuteronomy says it this way: “choosing life” means “obeying the commandments of the LORD your God … by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments” (Deut. 30:16).  It means “loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him” (Deut. 30:20).[5]

  Some might object that in the “Old Testament” people had to earn their salvation through obedience, while we’ve been set free from all that by Jesus Christ.  Not only does that not do justice to what we’ve heard from the Hebrew Bible today, it also doesn’t accurately reflect our Gospel lesson.  In this section of the Sermon on the Mount,  Jesus’ approach to the commandments is not to set them aside, but to make them a central part of what it means “hold fast” to God![6]  For him it means that we not only don’t kill one another, we also avoid hatred and anger.  Instead we practice reconciliation in our relationships.[7]  For him keeping the commands means that we not only avoid promiscuity, we also relate to others with pure hearts.[8]  For him, obeying God means that we avoid all the ways people use to circumvent the truth and practice simple, straightforward honesty.[9]  In other words, for Jesus, obeying God is not just a matter of what we do, it’s something that comes from the heart.[10]

  All this may sound very confusing.  I think many Christians over the ages have been confused about what they should do with the Hebrew Bible, especially the Law and its commandments.  Our lessons for today, like many other Scriptures, teach us that the purpose for the commandments has always been to call people like you and me into a relationship with God.  It is a special kind of relationship, one defined by sincere love and trust, and by obedience that comes from the heart.  That’s right--all the “thou shalt not’s” and the demands that go beyond the way everybody else lives have always been about our relationship with God!  God has worked through Prophets and Apostles and Saints and Sages throughout the centuries from Abraham to today with one goal in mind.  And that goal is to lead you and me into a relationship with him in which we respond to what he has done for us with love that comes from our hearts. When we have that kind of relationship that comes from the heart, we can do no less than make every effort to practice the way of life defined in Scripture as “walking in God’s ways.”[11]

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[1] © Alan Brehm.  A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/16/2014 at First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, TX.

[2] Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 140: “we know that one is not saved by keeping the law and can think of no other reason why one should try to do it.”

[3] Cf. Patrick Miller, Deuteronomy, 213 where he says that to live in covenant with God means “to commit oneself wholly to God and to God’s way.”

[4] Cf. Miller, Deuteronomy, 113: “The one who keeps covenant expects Israel to keep the covenant commandments; the one who loves Israel expects this people to love wholeheartedly in return.”

[5] John Shelby Spong, Living Commandments, 14, 15, says that it is through the Ten Commandments that we find “the fullness of life, the depth of love, and the meaning of our own humanity.”  Cf. also James L. Mays, Psalms, 99.

[6] Cf. J. Clinton McCann, “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible, IV:1175, where he compares what Jesus says here with Psalm 119. He says, “Jesus ... sought to extend the torah to represent God’s sovereign claim upon all of human life (see Matt 5:21-48).”  Cf. Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew, 51: “What Jesus teaches brings to articulation the ultimate purpose of God for his people expressed in Torah.”  Contrast W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew 1-7, 508-9, where they insist that these verses do not “offer us Jesus’ interpretation of the law,” because although “the Torah supplies him with a point of departure,” his demands surpass the Torah.  Therefore, for Jesus, “strict obedience to the commandments of the Torah is not enough” because “obedience to rules, even to the Torah, does not automatically produce the spirit that Jesus requires of those who follow him,” i.e., love. I’m not sure Davies and Allison are actually saying anything different from others on this, they’re just saying it more emphatically.

[7] Cf. Glen H. Stassen, “The Fourteen Triads Of The Sermon On The Mount (Matthew 5:21-7:12),” Journal of Biblical Literature 122/2 (2003):272: “To avoid ever being angry would be an impossible ideal, but to go and be reconciled with a brother or sister is the way of deliverance from anger.”

[8] Cf. Stassen, “Fourteen Triads,” 275, where he observes, “Of course, literally getting rid of the right eye or right hand would not prevent what causes the sin.”  Cf. also Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 524.

[9] Cf. Stassen, “Fourteen Triads,” 278: “The way of deliverance from the deceit and distrust of oaths that are not real, and from fine distinctions designed as escape clauses, is the transforming initiative of straightforwardly telling the truth.”  Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 533: “Jesus enjoins ... invariable honesty and integrity” which “makes the oath superfluous.”

[10] John Calvin,  Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles 175–176: “the law, which is spiritual, does not command only external works, but enjoins this especially, to love God with the whole heart.”  This is consistent with Jesus’ approach to the law in the Sermon on the Mount.

[11] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2.2:697: the demands of the Sermon on the Mount “show very plainly that the impact which is made on man by the mercy of God revealed and operative in Jesus Christ is something radical and revolutionary.”

Finding Life

Finding Life

Micah 6:1-8[1]

  We as a people are, I think, tragically confused about how to find life.  I think we’re not even sure what we’re looking for in life.  But whatever it is we’re looking for--happiness, fulfillment, success, or just pleasure--it seems to me that we’re looking for it in all the wrong places.  And we look to all the wrong people as our examples of what it means to be happy.  The rich and famous and beautiful have become the inspiration for many when it comes to how to find the life they’re looking for.  And yet the path many of them have shown us is that the way to be happy is to do whatever we please.  The sad truth is that when we turn freedom into a license to do as we please, the end result, time after time, is that people get hurt.

  But the lessons of prophets and sages of all the ages is that we do not find life by indulging the will to do whatever we please.  We find life by following the truth of what is right and good and beneficial to us all.  I believe our lesson from the prophet Micah points us in this direction:  “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic. 6:8). I realize this flies in the face of the “freedom” we think we have to do as we please.  It talks about what God “requires” of us.  It sounds like the way to bondage, repression, and restriction, rather than happiness in life.

  But if we were to conclude that, we would be missing one of the central points of the whole Bible.  From Moses to Micah to Matthew, the witness of the Scriptures is that we find life through our obedience to God’s principles.[2]  We find happiness and true freedom through the “truth that sets us free.” And an integral part of that truth is that we find fulfillment in life when we do what is right, when we treat others with love and kindness, and when we recognize that we are not the masters of our own fate.[3]  But the converse is also true: when we live for ourselves and our own selfish desires, when we treat others as a means to attain only what we want from them, and when we place ourselves on the throne of our lives, we become slaves to our selfishness, and lose the chance for true freedom and happiness in life.

  Essentially, this verse from the book of the prophet Micah is an eloquent summary of the commands of God throughout the Bible.[4] There are others: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18), which serves as the conclusion to an alternate version of the Ten Commandments in Leviticus.  The prophet Isaiah said this: “cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isa. 1:16-17). Our Psalm for today says this way of life is demonstrated in “Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak the truth from their heart” (Ps. 15:2).[5]  And, of course Jesus said it this way: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt. 7:12). 

  In all of these summaries, the same premise serves as the foundation for a way of life that is very different from the one many of our cultural icons hold out for us.  It is the premise that we find true freedom when we surrender our will to the will of God.[6]  It is the premise that we find true happiness when we give up the folly of “going our own way” and we follow the truths that have been handed down to us for generations (which happen to be many of the same truths that have been handed down for generations in the other major religions).  It is the premise that we find what we’re looking for in life when we give ourselves away in kindness and compassion for others, rather than trying to take as much as we can get for ourselves.[7]

  Ironically, this is the essence of the “Law” in the Bible.  The Torah, which basically means teaching or truth, is not about preventing us from doing all the things in life that make us happy.  A quick survey of some of the commandments makes it obvious that they only prohibit what hurts us and what keeps us from finding life.  And so it is that throughout the Bible, the heart of what the prophets and apostles have taught us is that it is through obeying these spiritual principles that we find the true freedom and true happiness we’re looking for in life.[8]

  That’s part of what Jesus’ message was in the Beatitudes.[9] When we look at them, we see a reflection of a way of living that is different from the self-gratification of our culture.  He talks about the happiness of those who are meek, while we give our praise to the proud.  He talks about the happiness of those who are hungry for God’s justice, while we  indulge in obsessive pleasure-seeking.  He talks about the happiness of those who are pure in heart, while we seem to think that purity is a quaint and obsolete notion.  If you’re looking to Jesus for an excuse to ignore the truths that have been handed down to us in the Bible, you’re looking in the wrong place.[10]

  It seems to me that when the advocates of doing what you please run into criticism, they inevitably turn to Jesus to defend themselves.  Or at least something like his principles of tolerance.  But those principles are part of a whole way of life.  The tolerance that Jesus and other prophets and teachers advocated is a part of a way of life that is very different from self-indulgence.  The kind of life that Jesus advocated, along with many prophets before him and after him, is a way of life that finds happiness and freedom and life through “Seeing that justice is done, letting mercy be your first concern, and humbly obeying your God” (Mic. 6:8, CEV).[11]  It seems to me, if we want to find life, that’s the path we need to be taking.

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[1] ©2014 Alan Brehm.  A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/2/2014 at First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, TX.

[2] It is essential to recognize that in this passage from Micah, as well as in all the summaries of God’s “requirements,” God’s gracious deeds of salvation always precede the demand placed upon those who benefit from them.  Cf. on Micah, Hans Walter Wolff,  A Continental Commentary: Micah, 183; and Daniel J. Simundson, “The Book of Micah,” New Interpreters Bible VII:582.

[3] Cf. Simundson, “The Book of Micah,” 582-83, where he points out that “what the Lord requires” is both easier and harder than the questions in Mic. 6:6-7 imply.  He says, “It is easier because there is nothing that we need to do (or are able to do) to make ourselves sufficiently worthy to approach God.  It is harder, because what God expects of us is a dedication of our whole lives, not just outward and occasional acts of piety.”

[4] Cf. Wolff,  Micah, 183; cf. also James Limburg, Hosea-Micah, 192, where he says the answer to the question “What does the Lord require” is “He has showed you ... what is good”; in this “one thinks of the whole tradition of the commandments and also the wisdom directives, long known in Israel.”  Cf. similarly, Simundson, “Book of Micah,” 583.

[5] Psalm 15:3 elaborates more specifically what it means to “do what is right, and to speak the truth from the heart”: they “do not slander with their tongue, and do no evil to their friends, nor take up a reproach against their neighbors.” Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 84, says that the character traits listed there “belong to the established tradition of right and wrong in Israel’s religion” and that they are “cases of conduct that effect the well-being or shalom of the various levels of the community.”  Cf. also H.-J. Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 228-29.

[6] James L. Mays, Micah, p. 136, suggests that the point of this passage is that it is not a “what” but a “whom” that the Lord wants.  He says, “It’s you, not something, that God wants. 

[7] Cf. James Limburg, Hosea-Micah, 193, where he says the call to “walk” is “similar to the call of Jesus, whose most characteristic invitation was not ‘believe’ but rather ‘walk’ or ‘Follow me.’”  He also says that Micah 6:8 “describes a step-by-step living with God and living for others, acting as advocate for the powerless and showing care for those who are hurting and need help.”

[8] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.2:566: “it is the grace of God which expresses itself in” the claims made upon us in the commandments. “It is always God in Jesus Christ who, as He puts these claims, wills to have us for Himself, to call us to Himself.”

[9] While Jesus was primarily proclaiming the good news of what God was doing through him to bring the peace and justice and freedom of the Kingdom, not teaching us a list of character traits that we are called to embody, I think we can also see the way of life summarized by the prophets and apostles reflected here.  Cf. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew 1-7, 440, where they point out that while the primary function of the beatitudes is not ethical, “it would be foolish to deny the imperatives implicit” in the beatitudes.

[10] Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.2:567: Jesus “Himself is the claim which God has made and continually makes upon all men.”

[11] Cf. Simundson, “Book of Micah,” 583, where he says, “If one is in right relationship with God (walking humbly with God), one need not worry overmuch about what to do to win approval or forgiveness for sinful indiscretions.  If one is not right with God, no liturgical ceremony, sacrifice, act of generosity, or rigid adherence to theological absolutes will be sufficient.”

“Minding” God

Psalm 19[1]

Words have a strange and fleeting existence. Do you remember what life was like before the words “online” and “internet” became everyday words? What ever happened to the mimeograph machine, or the typewriter ribbon? Can you imagine “developing” the “film” that you take out after you “wind” the camera! Among the words we have stopped using I would like to call your attention to the word “minding.” When I was a kid, you were supposed to “mind” your parents—which meant do what they said. But there were other uses of the word that we’ve left behind as well—do you remember what it meant to “mind” your manners? In that respect, “minding” is more like “remember” or “pay attention to”; it’s a matter of “keeping it in mind.”

That’s the kind of “minding” I think of when I look at Psalm 19. The Psalmist opens this expansive hymn by portraying the whole created order as a great declaration of God’s glory. But the strange thing about it is that the Psalmist also insists there are no words! How does that happen—speech without words? It would seem that the Psalmist recognizes two aspects of creation’s witness to God—it is clearly unmistakeable and it is completely inaudible! In effect, the Psalmist views all creation as an extensive visual aid to help us keep God in mind.

The same thing is true for torah. You might wonder what do creation and law have to do with one another? Yes, we can recognize that the music of the spheres is a beautiful song of praise to God. But we’ve been schooled to view the “law” as something restrictive, something oppressive, something that really doesn’t express or embody God’s gracious and merciful will. But I doubt that the Psalmist would allow any distinction to be made between the torah of the Hebrew Bible and Christ as “the way, the truth, and the life,” in the New Testament.

Psalm 19 is one of the more elaborate celebrations of torah in the Bible.[2] This psalm describes torah in as many ways as possible, and describes the benefits of torah for all humankind in as many ways as possible. I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message: “The revelation of God is whole and pulls our lives together. The signposts of God are clear and point out the right road. The life-maps of God are right, showing the way to joy. The directions of God are plain and easy on the eyes. … The decisions of God are accurate down to the nth degree” (Ps. 19:7-9, Message).

Here torah includes instructions, testimonies, precepts, and judgments. Torah consists of directions that were intended make it possible for us to return to a way of life in which we all can thrive; it contains principles or parameters that undergird living in covenant with God.[3]Torah also consists of the ways of God’s saving justice, as well as the stories about how God’s demonstrated saving justice to the covenant people.

The way the Hebrew Bible speaks about “observing” God’s ways is with the language of keeping the commandments. To “keep” the commands, however, is not at all like six-year-old children who “following the rules” because they’re just learning about rules and can in fact be obsessed with rules. That’s where some people seem to get stuck—in a childish legalism that’s obsessed with the rules. Jesus’ interactions with the Jewish religious leaders are a case in point. They faulted him for “breaking” the Sabbath commandment in order to restore life to a man who was suffering, while they are oblivious to the fact that in their keeping of all the Sabbath “rules” they were indeed violating the spirit of the Sabbath by using it to plot the death of a man they saw as a threat—Jesus himself![4] That’s where that kind of obsessive rule-keeping usually gets us.[5]

In the Psalms, “keeping” the commands resembles more the way the whole of creation obeys God’s will—it’s simply a matter doing what we’re meant to do by instinct. In the same way, the torah of God teaches us the way to live in harmony with God’s will—with God’s justice and mercy and love. It is a matter of keeping the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law.[6] The Psalmists see that not as something burdensome, but as a gift—keeping God’s torah effects restoration, grants wisdom, rejoices the heart, enlightens the eyes. Those are words for salvation[7]—which the Psalmist sees coming through written word, but we would say ultimately comes through the Living Word![8]

The bottom line is that torah, like creation, is a means for helping us to “mind” God—i.e., keep in mind the things of God, the ways of God, God’s truth and God’s justice, God’s love and God’s mercy.[9] This kind of receptive internalizing of scripture is one of the frames of mind and action that help us learn God’s ways. It reminds me of a line from one of Paul’s letters: “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).

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[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/15/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Of course, everything else pales in comparison to Psalm 119 with its 176 verses! In fact, Psalm 119 is actually longer than more than half the “books” of the NT!

[3] James L. Mays, Psalms, 99: Torah is “the wisdom by which Israel is to live and find life”; he says further that torah “bestows life, wisdom, and joy.”

[4] Cf. Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on his Apology for the Cross, 150-51. See also John D. Caputo, On Religion, 107-8, where he says that the violence endemic to this kind of fiercely literal fundamentalism is the result of their attempt to keep the passion for God contained in “boxes” of their own making.

[5] Cf. also David E. Garland, Mark, 114: “The Sabbath controversies show how God’s purposes for humankind are frustrated when circumscribed by a bunch of rules from pettifogging [def: nitpicking] religionists”!

[6] Cf. Greg C. Earwood, “Two Languages,” Christian Reflection: Moral Landscape of Creation (2001), 34.

[7] See the David J. A Clines, “The Tree of Knowledge and the Law of Yahweh (Psalm XIX),” Vetus Tesamentum 24 (1974): 8-14, where he compares the language of Psalm 19 regarding the torah to the language of Genesis regarding the benefits our original parents (mistakenly) assumed would derive from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge; cf. also Heidelberg Catechism 4.090-091, which defines eternal life as “Complete joy in God through Christ and a strong desire to live according to the will of God in all good works” and good works as “those which are done out of true faith, in accordance with the Law of God, and for his glory.”

[8] Cf. Mays, Psalms, 100: “it is only by the salvation of God that joy in the creation and observance of torah are possible.” Cf. also Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 141-42, “to live within [God’s law] is to live the life that is eternal. To be sure, law is not the source of rightness, but it is forever the course of rightness.”

[9] See the Study Catechism (1998), which says that the law “teaches me how to live a life which bears witness to the gospel, and spurs me on to do so.”

Postures of Faith

Psalm 22[1]

As I mentioned last week, I decided to make this prayer the theme of our Lenten observance this year: Teach us Your Ways, O Lord. At first glance, it may seem like an impossible task. How can we ever aspire to emulate God’s ways? The Psalmists give us some help with how to approach this problem. The Psalms for Lent encourage us to adopt certain frames of mind and action in order to help us learn God’s ways—we might call them postures that place us in a position where God can work to produce in us the fruit of righteousness, faithfulness, and steadfast love.

One of the surprising observations from a careful reading of the Psalms is that they are not just art for art’s sake. They do much more than put religion into pretty words. A careful look at the Psalms shows us that they are a book of torah, a serious collection of instruction. The Psalms teach us about God and about ourselves; the Psalms teach about God’s kingdom and the justice that makes for life. But the Psalms also teach us about faith and prayer and worship. [2] In fact, one could easily say that the Psalms have been the church’s primary textbook for learning faith and prayer and the worship of God. The Psalms have been the church’s prayer book and song book for centuries.

One of the most important lessons the Psalms have to teach us is about faith, And the perspective on faith in the Psalms is that it is not something straightforward. It is not easy. The path of faith is a difficult road. In our Psalm for the day, Psalm 22, the experience of faith includes both a painful cry of desolation and a joyous praise for God’s deliverance. One scholar describes the life of faith in terms of living “on the road.” It is unpredictable and inconsistent. Living the life of faith means “constantly wondering whether you’re getting anywhere, never sure you’re where you ought to be.” Even that is part of the journey. [3]

The language of faith in the Psalms reflects both this difficulty, and the richness that comes from putting forth the effort to make the journey. One of the chief words for faith is “wait.” In Hebrew Bible, “waiting” is a word of faith. It refers to a posture of trust, not one of anxiety or helplessness. To “wait” for the Lord is a matter of trusting God’s steadfast and faithful love no matter what. [4] In the Psalms, “waiting” for God as an act of faith involves some or all of the following:
• Trusting in/entrusting oneself to God; [5]
• Hoping in God; [6]
• Seeking/taking refuge in God; [7] and
• Committing your way/cause to God. [8]


From that point of view, I think we’d have to say that waiting is the very definition of our relationship with God. [9] I’m just not so sure we like it that way.

While we might think of this kind of trustful waiting as a matter of silent contemplation, or quietly accepting whatever may come, in fact the Psalmists may surprise you. In fact, the Psalmists carry out their “waiting” for God in many cases by calling upon or crying out to God—often quite insistently![10] Sometimes the psalmists cry out so bitterly you cannot help but conclude that what they are doing should be called “complaining” rather than waiting. Sometimes their “waiting” is so adamant that it seems to cross a line over into blasphemy! [11] We might not think of it this way, but from this perspective the opening cry of Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” can be an expression of profound trust in God!

Of course, sometimes, when all we hear is ourselves complaining, we may actually only intensify our fears and undermine our ability to wait trustfully. And in the Psalms as well there is a time for “waiting” rather loudly, and there is also a time for waiting quietly and patiently. Waiting trustfully from this perspective can also mean that we stop complaining to God and start learning to listen to God “in the spaces of quiet we leave for God”; it means “cultivating an open heart” to listen to the Spirit of God in a way that changes our lives. [12]

A combination of these two postures—crying out to God in such an insistent way that it can only be called “complaining” and silently accepting what comes one’s way—can actually be found in the prime example of faith in the Hebrew Bible: Job.[13] All the speaking and debating and protesting and complaining in the book of Job ultimately direct our attention “back to the person of God.”[14] It seems to me that’s where trustful waiting brings us—to the presence of the God who never leaves us nor forsakes us, who loves us with a love that will never let us go, who always continues to do the work of grace and mercy in our lives, no matter what our circumstances. As the Psalmist puts it, “To him, indeed, shall all who prosper in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him” (Psalm 22:29). If we want to learn to open ourselves to the ways of God, the place to start is to learn to trust God.

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[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/8/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] James L. Mays, Psalms, 16.

[3] Renita Weems, Listening for God, 118.

[4] Psalm 25:3,5; 27:14; 31:24; 33:20; 37:7,9,34; 38:15; 39:7; 40:1; 62:1; 130:5; cf, Mays, Psalms, 407 (on Ps. 130).

[5] Psalm 9:10; 25:2; 28:7; 3 1:14; 33:21; 37:3; 52:8; 56:2-4; 62:8; 71:5.

[6] Psalm 33:22; 39:7; 42:5; 62:5; 71:5.

[7] Psalm 17:7; 18:30; 31:1; 34:4, 8, 22; 37:40; 57:1; 62:2, 7, 8; 7l:3.

[8] Psalm 22:8; 31:5, 15; 37:5; 62:7.

[9] Paul Tillich, “Waiting,” The Shaking of the Foundations, 149-152.

[10] Psalm 18:6; 22:2, 24; 30:2, 8-9; 31:17; 55:16-17; 57:2; 61:2; 62:8.

[11] Mays, Psalms, ?

[12] Henri Nouwen, Turn My Mourning Into Dancing, 41-43.

[13] David J. A. Clines, Job 1-20, xxxvii: “all the speaking moves toward silence:
Job, who has done most of the talking, in the end lays his hand on his mouth (40:4-
5).”

[14] Brevard Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, 539-40.