There’s a popular slogan these days, “No Justice, No Peace.” Surely, we should want to positively affirm this simple statement. It is theologically true that there is no peace without justice. But in context, this slogan has been used as a threat. In short, “if we do not get justice, we will burn this city down.” So much turns on the meaning of justice.

God speaks some of the most beautiful words to anxious people. I don’t know where I read that, but it has stuck with me. Our text from Sunday took us to some of those beautiful words in Jesus’ otherwise peculiar command: “look at the birds” (Matt. 6:24). Birds are a reminder that God values us. If he feeds them, how much more will he care for us! That’s a good argument, and it’s put in a way that changes how we look at things. It literally changes what we are look at. Birds are one of God’s answers for our anxious hearts.

A certain headline recently caught my attention: “Utah monolith: Helicopter crew discovers mysterious metal monolith deep in the desert.” What was this all about? Sure enough, way out in the desert was discovered a triangular structure of polished metal. Its clean edges rose out of the ground some ten feet. Clearly it did not belong there, but where was it from? As if from another world entirely, that triangular structure was proof that someone was up to something.

A wedding ring does not make you married, which is good for me, because I lost my first ring. But a ring does say that you are married, and it says this to your spouse and to everyone else. You could say that the ring is a visual shorthand for the whole marriage package. It is perfectly fitted to symbolize a specific invisible truth.

Judging from the labels on our bottled water, we Americans like to know what’s in our water. Did it come from a spring? A mountain? Is it pure? We’re mostly made of water, so that makes sense. Well, the church is made of water too, the water of baptism. Yes, more important than drinking water is dunking water.