The following two things are true of most of us much of the time: First, we would happily welcome miracles to solve all of our problems and those of the world, and second, we generally find it more appealing to be spectators of solutions than the doers who bring them about.
In that regard, spectator sports might be a metaphor for life in general. It is more comfortable to sit with a drink or a snack in one hand and a remote control in the other as we watch activity on the field than it is to get out on the field ourselves. From the comfort of our couch, we can root for the team of our choice and click from our sight those teams in which we are not interested. And then when it is all over, the only quarterbacking we have to do is of the Monday morning variety.
Past the Passover
The people in the book of Joshua about whom we read today had just arrived across the Jordan from their very long trek through a dry and nasty desert. Theirs had been a journey that began with a Passover and included many ups and downs, both in terms of their physical comfort and safety and in terms of their faith in God.
At times they trusted the God they worshiped above all other gods. But at other times, they traded God in for a golden calf. And yet through it all, God had sustained them with the
