A few years ago fires ravaged hundreds of homes in the Oakland, California, area. Sometimes a single house would be spared, standing alone amidst the burned wreckage of homes surrounding it. In the front of one such house which had been saved the owners erected a huge sign: "Thank You, Jesus." Upon seeing the sign one child said to his parents, "Jesus must hate us. Our house got burned."1

Of course, we would be grateful if our house had been one of the fortunate ones in the midst of the raging fire, but how self-righteous and how insensitive to place a sign thanking Jesus when neighbors around us had lost everything. Surely, this is not the kind of judgment our Lord wants us to make in the crises we face.

At the close of the Epiphany season, our last lectionary text from Paul's letter to…