Something Better Than Exuberance

Psalm 95
Series: Dwelling in the Psalm
July 19, 2026

William G. Carter  

O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; 

let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed.

O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.

 

O that today you would listen to his voice!
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your ancestors tested me and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray,
    and they do not regard my ways.”
Therefore in my anger I swore, “They shall not enter my rest.”

 

I graduated from a school in New Jersey that had high expectations of its graduates. The curriculum required a full course of study – Bible, theology, history, counseling. Before they let you graduate, they required two courses in preaching, even if you had no desire to be a preacher. In addition, they required two courses in public speaking. And if necessary, more. I took three.

Because they told us, “You are going to speak in public, so you need to be prepared.” So, we practiced baptizing noisy kids. We memorized the communion prayer to maximize visual contact. One day we arrived in class to see a large rectangle of masking tape on the floor. “What’s this?” We would practice a graveside funeral service without falling into the hole. They wanted to make sure we were prepared.

But it all got started on the first day of class. The topic was “How to Lead a Call to Worship.” Each of us was given a scrap of paper with a verse or two, then pointed to a podium up front. It was our job to summon our classmates to begin an imaginary worship service. The lessons were invaluable. Enunciate the letters. Sculpt the words. Give appropriate emphasis to the right syllable. This is what we did, one by one, with plenty of feedback.   

It will not surprise you to learn that most of us were given lines from Psalm 95, the text for today. It was titled “the Call to Worship Psalm,” for much of it is ready made to initiate a worship service like this one.

The trick was to speak clearly for those with muffled ears, and to do it with just enough amplification to be heard in the back row, where many Presbyterians sit. We had to pretend the church had a lousy sound system yet arrest the attention of those gathered. The task was to signal something important was about to commence, without overdoing it.

The teacher was ruthless. One classmate from Pittsburgh showed up with a big floppy Bible. That was fine, but he insisted on adding an extra syllable or two to the Lord’s name: “Ja-ee-ee-zus.” The prof said, “Do it again.” When it was my turn, he shook his head to say, “Mister Carter, is your mouth full of cotton? Enlarge those consonants. Try it again.”

Then it was Margaret’s turn. She was short, slight, a little shy. But when she spoke, the lion roared. “That’s it!” he cried, which surprised everyone but Margaret. Margaret, by the way, enlisted as a Navy chaplain and rose to the position of Rear Admiral. She now serves as chaplain of the House of Representatives. Her third day of work was the January 6 insurrection, where she prayed for the congress and led them to safety. “I know how to get people’s attention,” she said. “That combat experience came in handy.”

What does it take for a good call to worship, anyway? We were taught to never begin with, “Hello, how are you doing?” Not that, but to aim higher, “This is the day the Lord has made.” We summon the people to worship.  And it is aimed at including all the people. The psalmist does not say, “Come, let me sing,” nor does he write, “Let me make a joyful noise.” It is “Let us worship,” or “Let us sing.” We are in this task of worshiping together. It is the leader’s job to lead.

The leader needs to grab people’s attention, inviting them to lay aside the grocery list they are making in the margin of the worship bulletin, to call them from their solitude or their conversations to connect with the community of saints around. For God is worthy. God is great. God raised the mountain up high. God scooped out the depths of the valleys.

A good call to worship is a call to look beyond ourselves, to look toward the Creator in praise and gratitude. We speak with exuberance! We stand with energy and enthusiasm, as if something important is at stake. Back at my school, this is what our speech teachers wanted us to know.

“For the Lord is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.” Are we clear about this? So far, so good. That is how the psalm begins … but that is not where it remains. 

Maybe it’s all that mention of sheep that moves the psalm somewhere else. “Oh,” says the Psalmist. “Oh, if only you would listen to God’s voice.” I don’t know what you know about sheep. They don’t listen very well. They aren’t very bright, either. It is a blessed affirmation to be part of God’s flock. But scripture is full of stories about sheep that wander away. They don’t pay attention to where they are or what danger lies at hand. Sheep tend to be motivated by their stomachs. They nibble themselves lost.

So, the one thing required of the sheep is to listen to the shepherd’s voice. It is one thing to get their attention. It is another thing for the flock to pay attention.

Fred Craddock was one of my teachers. He grew up on a farm in west Tennessee. “It was a dairy farm,” he said. They had a herd of one cow. It was a brown and white Guernsey cow, up in years, but still producing milk. When Fred sensed God was calling him to be a preacher, he decided he needed to practice. So, he went out to the field, found the cow, and started reciting Bible verses. There was nothing harder than getting the cow to stop munching on the timothy grass and look at him. It was good practice for a future preacher, he said. “And if the cow could pause and raise its head, I felt like I was getting somewhere.”

“Oh, that you would listen to God’s voice!” says the psalm. The poet leans back into Israel’s memory. He remembers a moment when nobody was listening. Actually, he remembers two moments and combines them together. Not long after God brought Israel out of slavery, the sheep of God’s hand started grumbling about water. “We don’t have any water. Why did God bring us out of Egypt and not provide any water? Back in Egypt we had the Nile River. All we have out in the desert is sand.” They grumbled. They complained. They needed somebody to blame.

And God said, “OK, I hear it. I will tell Moses what to do: strike that big rock over there, and there will be streams in the desert.” Moses took his big stick, whacked the rock, and the water came gushing out. God told him what to do, he did it, and the people filled their canteens. That’s the 17^th chapter of Exodus. And to mark the moment, he gave the place two names, “Massah” (which means “test”) and “Meribah” (which means “quarrel”).[1] Psalm 95 remembers that.

But it also remembers a time forty years after that moment, when Israel was still in the desert. The people were grumbling again, quarreling again. “We don’t have any water. Is God with us or not?” It was further evidence that the sheep of God’s hand hang on to the same old complaints. Rather than trust, they grumble, they quarrel, they put God to the test. Massah and Meribah, redux.

This time, it’s Moses who gets angry. He says, “Lord, what am I going to do with these people?” And God says, “We’ve been here before. Different location, same issue. So, get up, take your walking stick, and gather the people in front of that big rock over. This time, speak to it. Preach to it. Water will gush out of the rock.”

So, Moses got up, took his walking stick, gathered the people by the rock. He complained to the sheep of God’s hand. But he didn’t talk to the rock, as he was told. He hit the rock with his stick. Then he hit it again. And the water gushed out. The people scrambled to fill up their canteens. And while they were busy, God said to Moses, “You did not listen to me. You have just cooked your own goose. Because of your disobedience, you will not enter the Promised Land. You did not listen.”[2]

Remember what the psalm says? O, that today you would listen to the voice of God!  You see, it’s one thing to call the people to worship. It’s another thing for them to listen to the One they have come to worship. That’s really the heart of it all. That’s why, for three thousand years, Jews and Christians put the reading and interpretation of scripture at the heart of their worship service.

Worship is more than a “celebration,” which is how it is being marketed in some places. “Come to our worship celebration.” It’s about more than cranking up the crowd, or energizing the audience, or telling a good joke as if that is the only reason we are here. Worship calls us to listen. God wishes to offer us wisdom. God calls us to hear what he says. God calls us away from all the superficial substitutes and empty idolatries to receive teaching of deep substance. The message is more than we digest in one appearance, so we keep coming back, and bit by bit we are fed.

It is easy to stop listening. Listening is hard work. Receiving wisdom requires maturity. Understanding God’s ways requires practicing God’s ways. Sometimes, the sheep of God’s hand are still grumbling about the same things they grumbled about forty years ago.

Thirty-six years ago, I rolled into town. People were grumbling, “Sundays aren’t sacred anymore. Kids’ sports are killing off Sunday School. The stores are all open. The restaurants are running brunch specials. People have traded the Sabbath for something called ‘the weekend.’ Everybody wants leisure, but nobody understands true rest.” Guess what. Massah and Meribah, once again, in another kind of spiritual desert. Nearly forty years later, has nothing changed?

But we could change. We could be called to worship, and then we could come and listen. We could decide there is something more important than ceaseless activity and the emptiness of entertainment. There are so many gifts God provides for us: wisdom, instruction, peace, companionship, a clarity between right and wrong, forgiveness, and communion – to name just a few.

But we cannot receive the gifts of God if we grumble rather than listen. We cannot be refreshed if we move so fast that we pass by the springs of Living Water.

So, this old psalm calls us to join together, to be refreshed in our singing, our thanksgiving, and our joyful noise. And then, in our exuberance, if we listen, really listen, we might receive something that makes all the difference in our lives.

 

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Exodus 17:5-7.

[2] Numbers 20:1-13.

Praying for Right When Everything is Wrong

Psalm 94
July 12, 2026
Series: Dwelling in the Psalms

William G. Carter  

O Lord, you God of vengeance, you God of vengeance, shine forth!
² Rise up, O judge of the earth; give to the proud what they deserve!
³ O Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult?

⁴ They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast.
⁵ They crush your people, O Lord, and afflict your heritage.
⁶ They kill the widow and the stranger; they murder the orphan,
⁷ and they say, “The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.”

⁸ Understand, O dullest of the people; fools, when will you be wise?
⁹ He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?
¹⁰ He who disciplines the nations, he who teaches knowledge to humankind,
    does he not chastise?
¹¹ The Lord knows our thoughts, that they are but an empty breath.

¹² Happy are those whom you discipline, O Lord, and whom you teach out of your law,
¹³ giving them respite from days of trouble, until a pit is dug for the wicked.
¹⁴ For the Lord will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage;
¹⁵ for justice will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it.

¹⁶ Who rises up for me against the wicked? Who stands up for me against evildoers?
¹⁷ If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.
¹⁸ When I thought, “My foot is slipping,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.
¹⁹ When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.
²⁰ Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who contrive mischief by statute?
²¹ They band together against the life of the righteous and condemn the innocent to death.
²² But the Lord has become my stronghold and my God the rock of my refuge.
²³ He will repay them for their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness;
    the Lord our God will wipe them out.

 

We don’t have to dwell too long in the psalms before we discover a lot of pain in these pages.

For some, this is a turn-off. Given their druthers, they prefer happy psalms: “The Lord is my shepherd,” Psalm 23. “Enter God’s gates with thanksgiving,” Psalm 100. “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth,” Psalm 121. These are psalms that begin well and stay that way. No variation. No twists in plot. Life continues in a straight line, or so we want to believe. 

In the book of Psalms, we quickly discover what we already know: there is more to life than happiness. It’s there in the beloved Psalm 23, “Though I travel through the valley of the shadow of death.”  “You prepare a table in the presence of my enemies.” That’s in that favorite psalm, too. And it’s all over the psalm we hear today.

In a few minutes, we baptize another little child. We promise to raise him within the church. We teach him the Bible. Do we really want him to learn what the Bible actually says? According to Psalm 94, it’s OK to complain. Do his parents want him to learn that? Or will he come by it naturally? Because most of us do. All of us learn early there is a difference between the way we are told the world should be and the way it really is. The singer of Psalm 94 stands in that gap.

There are people out in the world who harm others. There are folks who are arrogant and mouthy; to make matters worse, they live and work at the top of the heap. If that’s not bad enough, not only is the world full of corrupt individuals, but entire nations can go off the rails. I guess the poet who prays these words lives in the same world as the rest of us.

Task number one is saying so. We can refuse to deny what’s really going on. Sometimes our prayers need to begin with honesty.

I was talking with one of my close relatives recently. She lives comfortably in a southern state, has a nice house, and enjoys a lot of leisure time. Lately she’s been working on her tan. The conversation moved from family news to the weather, and then to current events. I stepped in to say, “Hey, did you see on the news about that thing that…” and she shut me down. She said rather abruptly, “I don’t watch the news. It’s too depressing.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. She answered, “The world is a terrible place. If I watch TV in the evening, I watch the game shows.”

“Well, don’t you think it’s important to keep up with what’s going on?” “Nope,” she said, “for a while I watched one of the few channels that I agree with, but even that got ugly.”

I understood her feelings. One of the difficulties of adult life is accepting imperfections and wrestling with disconnections. “Well, that’s what you think,” she said. “I prefer to watch Jeopardy. In Jeopardy, there is always a right answer. If I hit the wrong button on my TV remote and accidentally click on the news, first thing I see is somebody is getting it wrong.”

“Of course they do,” I replied. “All of us get it wrong. Can’t we make this a matter of prayer?” She said, “Excuse me, it’s time for the Daily Double.” Nice work if you can get it.

As for the rest of us, we have Psalm 94. Do you know what prompts Psalm 94? Psalm 93 – that’s the one we had last week. Remember the theme of the day? “The Lord is king.” The Lord God of Israel rules over everybody. The Lord is sovereign over everything. According to Dr. James Luther Mays, who taught the Old Testament at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, that is the gravitational theme of the entire collection of Israel’s psalms. God rules. Psalm 93.

And then, we turn the page. Psalm 94 asks, “If God is king, what is he going to do with all this mess?” Good question. Again, it is a matter of prayer. If this is God’s world, the world is also God’s responsibility. And the psalm writer knows it.  That’s how the psalm begins – with a cry for holy vengeance. Not revenge as we know it, but as a divine correction. As a twisting back into shape whatever has been twisted out of shape.  

The evidence sounds grim. The powerful commit crimes – and they get away with them. Then they brag about it. It’s hard for good Presbyterians to imagine such villainy and scum, but there it is. The poet says, “God, take a good look at your people – they are precious, but they are being exploited. And they will rub out anybody – or shoot rubber bullets at anybody – who get in their way.

The assumption is that God isn’t paying attention. That is license for villains to do whatever they want. They believe they are not accountable to anybody, especially to the God they cannot see. And it all creates a lot of damage. The Bible won’t let us live in a bubble. It names the real pain.

When my Grandma Carter was still alive, I called up to see if I could visit. “Sure, you can.” Can I take you out for dinner? “Why that would be fabulous,” she said. “I’d like to go to Long John Silver’s.” That wasn’t on my list, but hey, it’s your grandmother. So, after I got there after a five-hour drive, I knocked on the door, said hello, and walked in.

She wasn’t ready. Her coat was on. The purse was in her lap. But she wasn’t moving from her recliner. “Have a seat, boy, and watch this with me.” She was glued to the TV. What was it? The Nashville Network, again, not on my regular list, but it’s my grandmother. “What is the show?” I asked. It was a country music video, a song by Martina McBride called, “Independence Day.”

It’s sung by an eight-year-old girl. Word around town was her father was a dangerous man. Her mama was proud and stood her ground. But everybody looked the other way. One Fourth of July, Mama has had enough. She would not endure any more nights in danger. To save her daughter, she will engage in an act of desperate justice. And now, the young girl, living in a foster home, sings out,    

Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning.
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay. It's Independence Day.[1]

I have long forgotten what I bought Grandma for dinner that night. But I will never forget what she said as I helped her out to the car. “These things should never be happening,” she said. What things, Grandma? “All of them.” It was a cry right out of Psalm 94. 

The psalm cries out for justice, for God to make things right. Six times, he describes those most to blame. He calls them “the wicked.” When was the last time you used that word?

We have heard stories about “wicked witches” of east and west, but these days “wicked” has lost its moral edge. Two skateboarders were comparing a jump and called it “wicked.” That had a sharper edge than calling it “extreme.” A NASCAR announcer said the track had a “wicked” turn. That meant it had a “nasty” turn – but the track designer probably didn’t mean to be cruel, only challenging.

By contrast, the Hebrew word for wickedness has to do with intentional evil. It has to do with harming human life. Three general victims are identified: the widow, the stranger, and the orphan. In that time, widows and orphans had no financial support. They had no safety net to catch them. And the stranger? That’s shorthand for anybody from another place who was not welcomed by the powers that be. Harming such people, all of them vulnerable, was evidence of wickedness.

Why do people act this way? The psalmist asks for all of us. God has taught us the commandments, but they are ignored. God has disciplined the nations, but the arrogant do not believe it has anything to do with them. In fact, some of them, the rulers, as they are called, are “conspiring together.” And what does the psalmist say that they do? They pass laws to reinforce their abuse of the weak and vulnerable. As he puts it, “They contrive mischief by statute.” Hmm. Imagine that.

So, here is what the psalms are all about. Moral instruction – and prayer. These are ancient verses, but they distinguish between right and wrong. They offer a marker on behavior. They hold up a mirror to intent. Perhaps we can avoid such issues, but every so often they end up as answers in the Daily Double. God sees perfectly. God hears completely. It is the fools who aren’t paying attention. Rest assured, God is paying attention to them.

That leads us to prayer. The poet has been around the block a few times. He knows the stunts that people pull on one another. He also has had moments of consolation and clarity – clarity that God knows us, that God does rule over all of this human nonsense – and consolation that God will do something about it.

How long? He asks again, “How long?” Eternally speaking, not long, but not soon enough. And that’s why we keep praying.

That’s Psalm 94. Next week, it’s Psalm 95, a far more pleasant text. But not completely. See you then.  

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] See the video online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbv5iJEDzN8.

No Kings But the King

Psalm 93
July 5, 2026
Series: Dwelling with the Psalms
William G. Carter

The Lord is king; he is robed in majesty;
The Lord is robed; he is girded with strength.
He has established the world; it shall never be moved;
your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.
The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice;
the floods lift up their roaring.
More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters,
more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the Lord!
Your decrees are very sure;
holiness befits your house, O Lord, forevermore.

We are spending a season by dwelling with the Psalms. We will listen to them, pray them, study them. And the first thing we discover is a central theme of those ancient prayers: God alone is king.

This is Israel’s profession of faith. There is only one God. Any other contender is a counterfeit. A fake. A pale imitation of the real thing. Only God is God; God rules over all.

Israel swore by this declaration as truth. Yet biblically speaking, it did not come quickly. In the days when the prophet Samuel was God’s appointed press agent, the people looked around the global neighborhood and said, “Hey, we want a king.” Samuel answered, “You don’t want a king.”

• The people said, “Everybody else has a king. Why can’t we have a king?” The prophet said, “God is your king!”
• The people said, “But give us a king that we can see and hear.” Samuel said, “Let me tell you about kings. They take your children and conscript them as soldiers.”
• The people said, “Every king needs an army. That’s why we want a king.” “Then the king will put some of them in forced labor while he rides around in a golden chariot.” A small price to pay, if you have a king.
• Samuel added, “The king will make some of your kids work as royal beauticians and cooks, then hand them off to be exploited.” Yes, but what an honor if they are working for the king!
• “But you don’t want a king. Kings steal your best farmland. They steal your best vineyards. They tax you to support their own vanity projects.” So, what? If we had a king, we would be great, just like everybody else.

To quote the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel, “A king will lead you into battle. And if you don’t have a battle, a king will invent a new battle. And you will cry in desperation. You have God; you don’t need a king.” But the people argued, “No! We want a king. Then we will be just like all the other nations.”

Samuel looked to God. God shrugged. So then, not for the first time, not for the last time, God gave the people room to make their own mistakes. Their first king was Saul. He was tall, good looking, and emotionally unstable. The pressure of the job can make you crazy, you know.

Saul was replaced by David, a young shepherd boy who took the job before Saul was done with it. Everybody loved David. David did a lot of good things. Not so tall, but exceedingly good looking. The women loved David. He played the guitar. But you know those musicians. He fooled around and fell in love.

That was before one of his own sons wanted to kill him. It went downhill from there. Samuel was right. You don’t want a king. The government of God’s people came unraveled with one bad king after another. Is it any wonder that if you put one imperfect person after another in high leadership, they will stumble and fall? Every single one. Some are worse than others.

And yet, behind them, above them, is the One Real King, the Lord of All. This is Israel’s statement of faith. The Lord is King, the Lord Alone. God’s way gives life to all. There is no other way. So, how do we live under the dominion of God when every nation has imperfect leadership at the top? This has been the long-standing human struggle as long as there have been nations.

Yesterday, we celebrated the birthday of our national experiment in democracy. The rainstorms did not wash away all the celebrations. I kept the day as I have often done so in the past: revisited a few speeches by well-spoken patriots, watched a couple of hours of Ken Burns’ film on the American Revolution, and then to top it off, listened to my two-volume recording of forty-one marches by John Philip Sousa. (It’s a British recording, which gives me a certain perverse pleasure.)  

Then I sat with a cup of coffee and remembered a moment from 1988. Muhlenberg College sponsored a visit by Dr. Martin Marty, the eminent church historian of the University of Chicago. The event was the bicentennial, not of the nation, but of the ratification of the United States Constitution. Dr. Marty, a serious Lutheran, pointed out how the Presbyterians affected the formation of that founding document.

It seems, long before James Madison drafted the Constitution, he had fallen under the spell of one of his college professors. A native of Virginia, Madison did not attend the College of William and Mary like many of his peers. He graduated in 1771 from the College of New Jersey, now called Princeton. His professor was the Rev. John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister, who would become the only clergy to sign the Declaration of Independence.   

Witherspoon taught him two lessons. First, if the Lord alone is the King, the rest of us are fallible. And second, any truthful government will build in a series of checks and balances to keep us accountable to one another. In his Federalist Paper #51, Madison believed checks and balances are the essential mechanism for preserving liberty. They ensure three essential practices: the prevention of tyranny, the harness of human nature, and the protection of the minority.[1] Power flows up from the people below, not down from a single individual above.

And where did Witherspoon gain this wisdom? From the honesty of the scriptures and an observation of what people are really like – two complimentary documents, by the way. One year later, in 1789, the Rev. John Witherspoon served as the convening moderator of the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.[2] The government he inspired for the nation resembles the government he helped to establish for the Presbyterian Church: a representative democracy where power is shared, every voice is respected, and nobody gets their way all the time. Built within church and nation are the mechanics for continuing improvement, should they be pursued.

And above it all, the Lord is King. Psalm 93 amplifies the truth of it. The forceful rainstorms of the past few days – did any of you make it rain? Of course not. As we walk through our lawns to pick up the fallen branches, is there anyone stronger than the thunderstorms? Yes, there is, and that is the One we worship today. Is there true beauty, even holiness, breaking into our world? Indeed, and we honor the Source of it. Is there anyone who is permanent, anyone who will outlive all the monkey business of the earthly leaders? Yes, the Lord God is eternal. God came before us; God will outlive us. This knowledge is enough to teach us to live with honesty, restraint, and a pursuit of what is best for the largest group of God’s people and creatures.  

250 years is but a blink of God’s Eternal Eye. It’s a long time for us, but just a small snapshot of God’s ongoing story. So, it’s enough for us to pause, reflect, and give thanks. We baptize a little boy named after Israel’s very first prophet. We break Christ’s bread for all and drink the wine of forgiveness. We begin again, and we pray that the Sovereign and Holy God would work among us to heal this land – and every land.

More on that next week, as we pray Psalm 94. For now, let us affirm that God rules over all.  

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] See https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-51/

[2] https://www.douglasdouma.com/2021/08/09/john-witherspoon-and-the-connecting-of-american-presbyterians/

Remembering What We Forgot

Psalm 78:1-31, 67-72
June 28, 2026
Series: Dwelling with the Psalms

William G. Carter  

In case you’ve forgotten the first verse from the psalm, here it is: “Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us.” (Psalm 78) 

Some people call this “the Christian Education” psalm, and for good reason. It speaks of teaching. It speaks of the faithful tradition of religious education. A wise teacher speaks to the covenant community and says, “Listen up!” Class is in session. It’s time to learn. The teacher says, “I’m going to reach back and grab the truth from our past, and I’m going to bring it right here and give it to our future.” The word for today is “remember.”

What do you remember? Can you remember Egypt? The Passover? The wandering in the desert? The entry into Promised Land? Can you remember Bethlehem? Jerusalem? Antioch and Rome? And just for a moment, can we remember who taught us about these things? 

There was that Sunday when I preached in the church where I grew up. Just like old times. The stained-glass windows gave the room an underwater glow. The sanctuary rug still smelled the same. There was the balcony where the preacher’s son and I folded paper airplanes out of worship bulletins, then accidentally dropped them while his old man was preaching. I was confirmed in that room. I was ordained there, first as a deacon, then as a pastor. The memories flooded my imagination.

Suddenly, there was Bonnie Ballard, one of my early Bible teachers. Years ago, Miss Ballard made me memorize three psalms, nine Beatitudes, and the Lord’s Prayer. She taught me that Presbyterians don’t “trespass,” they fall into debt. She selected me to play Joseph in the Christmas pageant because I was prematurely tall and I didn’t have a lot of speaking lines. She was probably bewildered when God grabbed me by the shoulders and said, “You’re going to be a preacher.”

My experience might be a little specialized, but all of us are here today because somebody like us taught people like us. They reached into the past to grab the riches of our heritage, and they offered them as gifts to fund our hearts and minds. Can you remember?

And then, just a year ago, I went to the 40th reunion of my seminary class. The grounds crew has pulled the ivy off the buildings, but the place still looks like a country club. We gathered in the lecture hall where I remember thinking, “I had no idea what they are talking about.” We worshiped in the chapel where I preached early sermons to classmates who sat with clipboards, ready to evaluate what I said and how I said it. And there was the portrait of my professor, Dr. Bruce Metzger. His name is literally printed in the front of our pew Bibles; the dude was old.

That old schoolhouse tried to teach me and succeeded somewhat. They set me on a trajectory to keep learning for the rest of my life, which is the greatest gift of a good education. When it comes to faith, we do not download facts. Rather, our minds must be formed. Our hearts must be shaped. It takes a while.

One consolation is making friends to join you on the journey. When I walked over for dinner one night, I saw a familiar dormitory window on the fourth-floor dormitory window. That’s where a friend we nicknamed “Rocket” resided. He had a bad habit of dropping water balloons on visiting theologians he didn’t like. I admired his courage.

All of this, I tell you, is a parable. What can you remember?

There is much that today’s Psalm remembers, more than we can bear. Psalm 78 is not all pleasant and joyful. Oh no. If we reach back into the past, we must deal with the things we have done, or the things we have left undone. We have to face all those devices and desires in our twisted hearts.

Psalm 78 tells a lot of honest stories. It does not withhold the truth. The poet who composed this psalm pushes to remember where we’ve come from. Then says, “Do you remember the fine mess that we fell into?” The Psalmist offers one story after another of how God did something good, and people of faith goofed it up.

For instance, “Can you remember when we were slaves in a foreign land? We were down in Egypt, forced to produce for Old Pharoah. Pharoah was a nasty taskmaster. He demanded bricks from us until God stepped in. God poured blood in the river, sent frogs and flies, struck the first-born down, until Pharoah said, “Yes, you can go.” And the very minute we became free, we began acting like we were the center of the universe, and it made God angry.

And then, “Do you remember when we were in the desert? The sun was pounding down, we were walking around without water, we were complaining about the heat, we were wondering how we would survive. God said, ‘Whack that rock with a stick, and I will give you living water.” That’s what Moses did – but we complained about it.

There is no use in whitewashing history. In every season, somebody will try to smooth over the past. Nobody likes to hear that human slaves built much of the White House. Or that President Andrew Johnson was impeached for attempting to undo the Civil War. Or that we have many painful moments in our history that we would like to forget – yet as the Psalmist says, “We will not hide these things from our children.”

Are there things you’ve discovered about our past that you did not previously know? Have you ever smoothed over the pain of those who lived before us? It’s convenient. It’s smoother. Yet that’s where the lessons, the real lessons, can be found.

Another school story: One September day in 1978, I walked onto the enormous campus of my university. I didn’t know a lot of people. It was overwhelming. There were four hundred classmates in my first-level biology class. Whew, I needed a coffee! So, I stumbled over to the cafeteria. There was a huge demonstration at the campus center, and a big sign, “We must never forget.” And then, large prints of atrocities that had once happened in the death camps of Germany.

Maybe I knew there has been a Holocaust, but I tell you the truth: it was never mentioned in my high school history class. I was appalled. Immobilized. It was a lot to process. And either I had never been told or had not been paying attention.

Maria Harris, the Roman Catholic educator, speaks of the “null curriculum.” That’s the material you don’t teach. Somebody omits, ignores, or leaves unsaid an important lesson. As she points out, “ignorance is never neutral, omission is intentional.”[1] We cannot grow as believers, we cannot grow as human souls, unless we face the best and the worst of what it means to be human.

So, we look back and remember. We confront the truth, the whole truth, and not merely the convenient half-truth. And we learn something about ourselves.

A friend suggested David McCullough’s book on the Johnstown Flood. If you’ve never heard the story, two thousand Pennsylvanians drowned in 1889. The Johnstown Flood was one of the greatest natural disasters in this country. And did you know? The flood was caused by God and the Presbyterians.

For God’s part, God sent a lot of rain. As for the Presbyterians, they were people like Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and Henry Clay Frick – wealthy industrialists who made millions on steel and railroads. They built a hunting camp about fourteen miles uphill from Johnstown. When summer came, it was a great place to escape from the stress of their mansions in Pittsburgh. Being people of privilege, they didn’t pay attention to the quality of the dam that created their fishing lake. They ignored every warning that the dam wasn’t safe.

And God sent the rain, the Presbyterians neglected their dam, and the flood roared down the hill. Those rich old Scots said, “Maybe we should start summering in the Adirondacks, or in Paris.” As David McCullough reminds us, “There is a danger in assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly.” 

O people of faith, are we willing to remember? Can we look honestly at the human condition? Can we be transparent enough to confess where we’ve wandered? And what we have neglected? Only then can we also confess the hope that God has planted within our souls.

Scholars tell us Psalm 78 is a salvation history psalm. It is Israel’s honest recital of their own faults. It is also the narrative of God’s persistence. You and I hold a sacred story of how God has stuck with us – even though God could have chosen people far more faithful and better tempered. God chooses to work through the likes of us. That’s part of the lesson.

Like that moment in the movie theater. We watched as a young singer began her rise to fame – and her business manager began to get too big for his britches. The lady a few seats down exclaimed, “Now, don’t you forget where you come from.” That was the best part of the movie. It was the lesson that needed to be taught.

So where do the people of God come from? We come from the steadfast mercy of God. Don’t ever forget this. t God makes each one of us and calls us precious. Don’t forget that, in the language of the psalm, God “snorts with indignation” when we forget where we’re from. Don’t forget that God gives us this day our daily bread, even as we keep testing and pushing up against such generosity. And whatever else, don’t forget that God stays with us through every wrong turn on a bumpy road, and expects us to do better.

According to Psalm 78, God has had plenty of reasons to dump this unfaithful people, yet God will not do it. God stays faithful, because a promise is a promise, a covenant is a covenant. God stays with us - - and that is the great parable. That’s the hidden mystery of how a holy God keeps bending down toward people with bloody hands and dirty fingernails. It has less to do with our behavior, and more to do with God’s character. Infinitely more.

“Listen,” says the Teacher, “and I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter things we have heard and known which we will not hide from our children.”  Still, God stays with us. That is the parable.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Maria Harris, Fashion Me a People: Curriculum in the Church (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1989).

The Company We Keep

Matthew 9:35-10:8
June 14, 2026
William G. Carter

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

 

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

 

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

 

For the last couple of weeks, we have considered the call of God. God summons us, just like the prophet Isaiah who responded, “Here I am, Lord; send me!” And last week, God called Abram and Sarai and said, “Leave your familiar surroundings and go; I will tell you when you get there.” At the end of last week’s sermon, I noted there are three essentials for answering the call. The first is courage, because the road ahead is always uncharted. The second could be summed as devotion, noting Abram built altars along his journey.

Today, let me tell you about the third essential. God calls us into a community. When God calls us, there are other people with us. We are never called to go it alone. Even those exceptional cases like the prophet Isaiah, who heard and saw the glory of God in a moment tailored just for him – he was called to speak to others. And a community of faith kept his words, wrote them down, and preserved them for the past 2700 years. 

No surprise, then, that when Jesus sets out to change the world, he creates a community. He will not do the work by himself. He calls twelve others to join him, to extend his reach, to spread the power and love of God into every direction. Did you catch their names?

Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John. Phillip, and Bartholomew. Thomas, Matthew, and the other James. Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanean, and Judas Iscariot. There are twelve of them, just like the twelve tribes of Israel. Most of us could not name those tribes without some help. We should be gentle on ourselves. Many of us past the age of forty can’t remember the three things that we wanted to pick up in the grocery store.

The Gospel of Matthew makes a list of the twelve apostles, those Jesus appointed to stay with him. That’s not to say they all stayed with him. They weren’t perfect. There is Judas, of course. But the other eleven also scattered after Jesus was arrested. Jesus chose them, and they weren’t perfect.

Of all the Gospels, Matthew says they’re pretty good. After a long day of tossing some parables into the air, Jesus turned to the twelve and said, “Do you understand what I’m saying?” They said, “Certainly! Of course we do.”[1] Other gospels aren’t as complimentary, but Matthew infers some authority to the twelve that Jesus called. Even so, there were moments. One day, Mrs. Zebedee showed up. (Remember, the mother of James and John?) She begged Jesus to give her boys some preferential treatment. “Make them a little bit better than the other ten rascals,” she said.[2] Jesus rolled his eyes and shook his head.

There were twelve of them. Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John. Phillip, and Bartholomew. Thomas, Matthew, and the other James. Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanean, and Judas Iscariot. Did you notice anything about that list?

It is not a complete list. These are the names of twelve men. Everybody knows there are more women in church than there are men. Just look around the room. Elsewhere, the New Testament reminds us that women followed Jesus. They funded the ministry of Jesus out of their own purses.[3] The Bible never says anything like that about the men. The Bible says they argued about money, but it never says they coughed up any. Matthew’s list is not complete. Women belong on the list. In many congregations, women actually run the place.

What’s more, this is not an accurate list. Forget what somebody told you about the Bible. The Bible does not agree who is on the list. Matthew copies Mark’s list, but Luke doesn’t mention Thaddaeus. Instead, he names a second man named Judas, son of James. When we get over to the Gospel of John, there’s somebody named Nathanael. We don’t have a clue who that is. Some pious scholars scramble to say Thaddaeus, Judas, and Nathanael must be the same person – yet the Bible never worries about straightening that out.

The only time we see all twelve disciples standing together is when Leonardo DaVinci said, “Hey guys! Stand on the same side of the table. I want to paint you into the picture!”

Matthew’s list is not complete list. We can’t even say if it’s accurate. But let me say this: this is a diverse list. Sure, Mark tells us about twelve men. In our imaginations, we can picture them at thirty years old with curly hair. Yet it’s hard to imagine a group like this holding together.

There are two sets of brothers, Simon and Andrew, James and John. They left behind their fishing boats and their fathers. Jesus knew them up in the hill country, a euphemism for “the sticks.” We don’t know anything about Thomas, Thaddaeus, or James 2.0. But we know something about Matthew – a tax collector, a despised collaborator who worked for the Empire. He swindled his own neighbors to fund the foreign soldiers who occupied their town.

Standing next to Matthew is Simon the Canaanean. He was a Zealot, a revolutionary with a dagger under his cloak, ever ready to take out the tax collectors like Matthew. Jesus called both of them to be part of his team. That would be like Russell Vought handing the matzoh to Jamie Raskin at the Passover Seder. Or J. D. Vance and Elizabeth Warren sharing a hymnal in the same pew. Diversity is Christ’s plan, not uniformity.

Not only that. Eleven of the disciples came from the northern territory of Galilee. The twelfth may have been the man from Kerioth – “ish-Kerioth” or “Iscariot” – Kerioth was a town way down south in Judah. So, there may have been eleven Yankees and Judas the Confederate. Jesus wants them all at his side. Diverse backgrounds, different political views, distinct geographies – none of that matters to Jesus, because he chooses them all.

Think of how remarkable this is, that the grace of Jesus Christ would transcend human opinions and divisions! Diverse, young, old, male as well as female, whoever, wherever, however. There is no unanimity in the group, but there is harmony as Christ calls us to sing together. That’s the point of it all. Standing at the center of this new community is Jesus. He is what they hold in common.

Look at the list. There are two sets of brothers: Peter and Andrew, and James and John. Ever have two brothers who agree on everything? I love my brother; we agree on a lot of things, but not everything.

And who knows how many of them were married? Earlier this Gospel says Simon Peter had a mother-in-law. That means he had a wife.[4] But we don’t know her name, or how she felt about him quitting the fish business and running after Jesus. Did they have kids? Did she have to watch them while he gallivanted around Galilee?

It’s almost as if Matthew says that family status is irrelevant when it comes to following Jesus. What matters is that you know that he is calling you into a community called “Church” – and that he is giving you work to do.

That brings us to the heart of the matter. Jesus calls the twelve and gives them two-fold work: to proclaim his Message and to heal the world.

The Message proclaimed is clear: that God is coming close, that God shall rule over earth as clearly as God rules heaven, and that we must make the necessary adjustments to welcome God’s ownership of our lives. “Preach the Message,” Jesus says. “The time is right here, God rules over us right now, change your lives to claim God’s love.

And then, he calls us to heal the world. This requires laboring in internal medicine (cure the sick), dermatology (cleanse skin diseases), and mental health (cast out the demons). And if that’s not enough, “raise the dead.” Breathe the new life of God where everything has withered away. Not too much to ask, is it?

The point of it all is that Jesus gives his power to ordinary people. He equips them to work together, to make a difference for God and humanity. This is what matters. Jesus calls together a bunch of diverse people, with different backgrounds and skills. And he says, “Proclaim the authority of God over all of human life!” This is our extraordinary calling, to be the baptized – for the benefit of the world.

Now, consider what this means. In the diverse community that Christ calls, you might not get your way all the time. You might not get your way at all. Our calling is greater than that. We are called to work together to pursue God’s way. The most important question before us is always this: What does it mean, in our place, in our time, that God rules over human lives? What would it look like for us to build the love of God? To welcome the justice of God? To do the work of God?

I’ve noticed that when churches stop asking these questions, they start to fizzle out. Perhaps they get tangled in personality disputes; the “Sons of Thunder” start mouthing off rather taking care of the neighborhood, or Matthew the tax-collector and Simon the revolutionary start plotting harm to one another. If a church, like any other organization, is merely a human organization, it can go off the rails in a hundred separate ways. And it will need a Book of Order to keep Christian disciples from beating up on one another.

But the true church of Jesus is always more than a human organization. It is called into existence as a holy fellowship, commissioned by Jesus to do the work of God. We are God’s tactical team in this neighborhood. We welcome God’s Breath to fill our lungs, we pray for God’s Power to push us into action, and we trust God’s Spirit will animate our spirits. Christ infuses his people with his own presence. When we put a bridle on our own whims, when we submit our willfulness to God’s greater will, the Gospel Message takes on skin and bones – and the world’s ills can be healed.

That is why we are here, my friends. That is why he chooses us. We are here to enflesh the life of Jesus Christ. We are here to love all the people that Jesus loves. We are here to do the work that Jesus inaugurated.

We don’t have to have faith figured out in advance. We don’t have to be right about everything. We don’t have to compel everybody else to agree with us. We don’t have to worry about who is on the list and who is not, because it is not our list. It is Christ’s list. And as we are fond of saying whenever we baptize a child, “Your family is a whole lot bigger than you think it is.” And here you are. Thanks be to God.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Matthew 13:51.

[2] Matthew 20:20.

[3] Luke 8:1-3.

[4] Matthew 8:14.