Sam Goldwyn, the great picture maker, said of one of his movies, "I don't care if the picture makes money. I just want every man, woman, and child in America to see it."

Goldwyn has the same relationship to small and large, short and tall, that many of us have. We want both. We don't want the money — we just want what goes with the money, which is the freedom. We don't want to win the argument; we just don't want to lose it, either. We don't want the kids to be just like us, to be clones of their parents, but we don't want the apple to fall too far from the tree either. As long as everybody sees our picture, we don't need the money, either.

Both Jesus and the writer of Romans join us on the trapeze that suspends us over matters of scale, size, large, and small. Paul knows he has fallen s…