Jesus asks us to be generous with the poor. It’s one of the foundations of his public ministry: caring for the poor himself and asking his disciples to do so.

We are invited, today, to listen—and as the psalmist today colorfully puts it, God has even done us the courtesy of digging out our ears so that we can hear.

Even in our relationships with family and friends, forgiveness can be hard to come by.

That woman is in so many parishes, right there beneath the exit sign and almost out the door, singing while the roof gets ripped off and the sky falls.

Even when events are messy and motives are questionable and hardships abound, we must trust that God’s unknowable power is at work.

Most of us are so removed from agricultural realities that we fail fully to embrace the image of chaff in today’s psalm.