This past Sunday, Maddie preached on the book of Habakkuk, a prophet who asked God why bad things happened, wasn't satisfied with God's answer, and eventually found a way to keep going with God's help anyway.

In her sermon, Maddie brought up a couple of books, a poem, and a prayer:

1. Holy Resilience: The Bible's Traumatic Origins, by David Carr

David Carr is a Hebrew Bible scholar (and he's the PhD advisor of Pastor Emeritus Caroline Park at Union Theological Seminary!) This takes a look at how the writers of the Hebrew Bible responded to the catastrophes and trauma that the Israelites faced by writing about God in ways that made sense to them. This helps explain why, in certain parts of the Hebrew Bible, God comes across as punishing or as not loving— this was how the writers of the Bible made sense of what was happening to them and what had happened to the Israelites throughout history. Similarly, we each go on our own journey where we make sense of how God moves in the world. While we believe that God is a God of love, there might be moments when we face our own catastrophes or trauma and when God might not make sense to us. In those moments, we get to write our story with God, accepting that we won't always understand why bad things happen, but knowing that God is with us always through it. Just like the people who came before us, we can draw on God for the strength to keep going.

2. Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler

Kate Bowler is a scholar of Christian history at Duke Divinity School who learned that she had stage 4 cancer while studying prosperity gospel Christians. She writes in this book about how Christian truisms embraced by prosperity gospel Christians like "Everything Happens for a Reason" were harmful to her as she came to terms with her diagnosis and her own mortality. She considers the ways in which we might as Christians embrace not-knowing or not understanding the ways in which God works or why. And she explores how embracing not knowing might lead us to understand God as loving even in the midst of our own suffering. 

3. The Watchpost (Habakkuk's Mantle), a poem by Walter Brueggemann
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As you go out into the world this week trying to find God in the midst of grappling with the world as it is, let me leave you with Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann's poem he wrote about Habakkuk that helped him come to terms with the world's unfairness:

The watchpost (Habakkuk’s mantle)
The oracle speaks.
Layers of whispers sound like sand poured through fingers.
Prayer leaves a grit in my mouth.
There is an urge from somewhere, and if I could only separate the grains, line them up on a piece of dark paper,
a clearer picture would emerge: even a mere pause of violence, hatred, destruction, and greed.

How long will I cry out and you will not answer?
I will stand at my watchpost.
Yet wisdom says that the rampart is not high but deep within,
that in the cave of my heart the cliff rises where I can stand and see the work that soothes the struggle,
the work of my own soul, the awareness of your desire and my own resistance.
Someone let loose a lie that life would naturally improve,
that somehow goodness would gather speed like water flowing downhill.
But wholeness is a buried gem, excavated from a heart of stone.
Each blow of the hammer on the rock inspires hope to sing in the veins:
a desire to be free.
The entrance to the cave is locked to all but me,
and the One who dreams me is already within holding the key to open myself.
For there is still a vision.

4. Habakkuk's Prayer

And then the book of Habakkuk closes out with a prayer that the prophet speaks into the world, having come to terms with the fact that he won't ever fully understand why the world is the way it is and vowing to keeping crying out to God anyway. Here's that prayer in case it's helpful for you.

O Lord, I have heard of your renown,
    and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work.
In our own time revive it;
    in our own time make it known;
    in wrath may you remember mercy.
God came from Teman,
    the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah
His glory covered the heavens,
    and the earth was full of his praise.
The brightness was like the sun;
    rays came forth from his hand,
    where his power lay hidden.

Before him went pestilence,
    and plague followed close behind.
He stopped and shook the earth;
    he looked and made the nations tremble.
The eternal mountains were shattered;
    along his ancient pathways
    the everlasting hills sank low.
I saw the tents of Cushan under affliction;
    the tent curtains of the land of Midian trembled.
Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord,
    or your anger against the rivers
    or your rage against the sea,
when you drove your horses,
    your chariots to victory?

You brandished your naked bow;
    Sated were the arrows at your command. Selah
    You split the earth with rivers. 
The mountains saw you and writhed;
    a torrent of water swept by;
the deep gave forth its voice.
    The sun raised high its hands;
the moon stood still in its exalted place,
    at the light of your arrows speeding by,
    at the gleam of your flashing spear.
In fury you marched on the earth;
    in anger you trampled nations.

You came forth to save your people,
    to save your anointed.
You crushed the head of the wicked house,
    laying it bare from foundation to roof. Selah
You pierced with their own arrows the head of his warriors,
    who came like a whirlwind to scatter us,
    gloating as if ready to devour the poor who were in hiding.
You trampled the sea with your horses,
    churning the mighty waters.
I hear, and I tremble within;
    my lips quiver at the sound.

Rottenness enters into my bones,
    and my steps tremble beneath me.
I wait quietly for the day of calamity
    to come upon the people who attack us.
Though the fig tree does not blossom
    and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
    and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
    and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will exult in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer
    and makes me tread upon the heights.
To the leader: with stringed instruments.

This past Sunday, Maddie preached about Paul's Letter to Philemon.

So this week, we're offering a podcast interview with theologian Emerson Powery that dives into some of the nuances of that letter!

This podcast conversation explores just how much complexity is packed into this short, personal text. The discussion unpacks the relationships between Paul (the letter writer), Philemon (the man the letter is addressed to) and Onesimus (the escaped slave who the letter is about), highlighting how the letter—though addressed to an individual— was likely read publicly and carries real social pressure. It wrestles with the central ambiguity of the letter: Paul clearly wants something from Philemon regarding Onesimus, but never states it outright, leaving interpreters to debate whether he is calling for freedom, better treatment, or something more subtle. The conversation also traces how Philemon has been used in American history on boht side of debates over slavery, revealing how context shapes interpretation, and ultimately suggests that while Paul's rhetoric is intentionally indirect, it gestures toward a reimagining of relationships grounded in love & shared identity in Christ.

In her sermon on Sunday, Pastor Alison spoke about "the ache of being human." Aching for something more seems to be hardwired into us as human beings. As a result, one way that we can understand spirituality is as the journey of learning how to direct, or to rightly orient, that ache. Two thinkers who have thought deeply about this topic are Father Ron Rolheiser and Kate Bowler, PhD.

Father Ron Rolheiser is a Roman Catholic priest and member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He is a lecturer and writer with a weekly column that is carried in more than 50 newspapers worldwide. He is the author of numerous books as well. He has been a priest for 28 years. 

Kate Bowler is an author and professor at Duke Divinity School. One of Bowler’s research topics was the American prosperity gospel — the belief that God guarantees health, wealth, and happiness. After writing a book on this topic, in a sort of tragic, ironic twist, Bowler was unexpectedly diagnosed with stage IV cancer at age 35. While she was in treatment and not expected to survive, Bowler wrote two memoirs about how her perspectives on life and faith had been fundamentally changed as a result of her diagnosis. Bowler discovered that “life is so beautiful and life is so hard. For everyone.”

On an episode of Bowler's podcast "Everything Happens," Rolheiser and Bowler discuss their perspectives on the ache of being human. Here's a description of the episode:
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"There’s an ache at the center of being human. The kind that doesn’t go away with a fresh to-do list or a good night’s sleep. It’s the longing for more. The grief of what wasn’t. The quiet ache of ordinary life—school pickups, grocery runs, scan results, and the slow accumulation of things we didn’t choose. In this tender and deeply wise conversation, Kate Bowler speaks with Father Ron Rolheiser—beloved Roman Catholic priest, theologian, and bestselling author—about the ache that lives in all of us... and why it might be the most holy part of who we are. This episode is for anyone who feels a little restless, a little disappointed, or just plain tired—and is looking for a spirituality big enough to hold the beautiful, unfinished life they’re living. In this conversation, Kate and Ron discuss:

• Why we all have an ache inside of us (and why that’s okay)
• The convalescence you may need from church communities that have hurt you
• How living in six-month intervals can teach us what really matters"

If, after listening to their conversation, you want to read more of their thoughts on this subject, you are invited to explore the links below:

Father Ron Rolheiser

• "Longing Is Our Spiritual Lot"
• ​"St. Augustine's one sentence that explains our restlessness"

Kate Bowler, PhD

• "Living with the ache"
• "The ache is not going away"
• "Naming the ache"

Alison ended her sermon by sharing the same prompt that Bowler offered to her readers: “What is one ache you’ve been minimizing or ignoring? How might it feel to name it without trying to fix it?”

Alison encouraged us to start by naming the ache for ourselves. And, then, if we are feeling a little bit brave, to share it with someone else. That could be a member of the River staff or community, a friend, a therapist, or a trusted family member. As you share, try to remember that to ache is to be human.