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“The Eucharist, the church’s exposition of Israel’s thank offering, is an act of defiance and resistance against the self-sufficiency championed by the consumer culture in our society. Thanks is a recognition that we live by divine generosity to which we can, as we are able, render and enact commensurate gratitude.“

“Since we live in a culture decisively out of sync with God’s divine governance as lived out in the Psalms, singing these poems is at one and the same time an act of hope (that God‘s rule will prevail) and an act of resolve (to participate here and now in that new governance).“

“It is the work of the Psalter to populate our world with the character of this God. Where this God governs, the world is transformed and transformable. It becomes a place of joy and duty—of joyous duty—place of buoyancy and risk.… The people of this counter-world of covenantal duty and joy, of buoyancy and risk, will now and in time to come be characteristically lost in wonder, love, and praise.”

“What is practiced by Israel in its laments is enacted by Jesus in his life, a practice and an enactment that became the ground for the life of the church as a community that is called to ‘lose its life’ for the sake of the gospel in order to ‘gain its life’ as a new gift from God.“

“It is the mercy, steadfast love, and compassion of YHWH that will prevail over the sin, transgression, and iniquity.”

“When life is not well and we are pushed to extremes, the lament Psalms offer a model of engagement in full candor with the God of transformative possibility. Such prayer is intense, dangerous, and urgent. It moves deeply beneath our usual innocuous prayer in which nothing is at stake, because in this kind of prayer everything is at stake.“