Book meme

Tagged by JohnieB. Here are the rules:

Pick up the closest book of 123 pages or more.

Go to p. 123.

Read the first five sentences.

Post the next three sentences.
***

The closest book to me that is mine is How to Preach a Parable, by Eugene L. Lowry. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989.) Here is my offering:

"....Why, those last folks hardly had time to work up a sweat, yet you
make them equal to those of us who have borne the burden of the day and the
scorching noontime heat."

But the moment of injustice happens as we knew it would. The text
provides a marvelous understatement: "They grumbled."

I expect so.

Note, I said the closest book that is mine. I'm housesitting for one of my favorite people, an ever-more-fraudulently retired CDSP faculty member. I'm sitting on the floor in his office, right now.

He taught me Anglican Ethics and a reading course on Stringfellow, last year; so it's not surprising that the closest book to me at the moment is Work in the Spirit, by Miroslav Volf (New York: Oxford, 1991).

From the chapter entitled "Work, Human Beings, and Nature":

In the remainder of the book I will attempt to answer these
questions.

A comprehensive theology of work would need to discuss these issues much
more exhaustively than I am able to do here. If I were to attempt to
develop a full-blown theology of work, I would far exceed the limits of this
book. What I intend to do here is only to sketch some basic aspects of
work's relation to human beings--to their nature, their needs, and their other
significant activities--and to their natural environment.

There you go. As for tagging others to play: all may, some should, none must. Have at it, if you've not been tagged already.