“being healthy or having a full belly are not the goals that Jesus is trying to achieve, any more than having the largest group of people following him is something he is after. Jesus wants something bigger. Something more impactful.”
Sermons
“It’s almost as though Jesus isn’t interested in propping people up, either today or in his own day. He’s not concerned with their position on the social ladder or increasing their followers or level of influence. In fact, Jesus’ advice sounds like it was meant for a different people altogether than those he was talking to—different from us today too.”
“How many of us show up to church or to pray with our head bent down, looking at a small area on the floor, and waiting for God to show up in that space? Is this what our church services have become? Is this what our interactions with each other have been reduced to? The five-foot circle of familiarity?”
“We want hippy Jesus in tie-dye and bell-bottoms and a headband and round John-Lennon glasses.…but that’s not who we get today.Who is this Jesus? The Jesus of fire and division? Can’t we just skip this part?”
“If what makes us furious like nothing else is something that is immoral, or unholy—not of God—then that rage might not be a flaw in us—it might be a reflection in us of the divine; God also gets angry. And God is holy.”
“We are dead and our life is hidden with Christ in God.” It is the stuff of fairy tales and fantasy novels – and it’s no wonder that early Christians were treated with suspicion or even hostility. This faith of ours disrupts the natural order in ways I don’t think we usually really notice, allowing such claims to become tame metaphor rather than wild assertions
In order to have a neighbour to love, we must first become neighbours. It’s an identity, not an obligation and certainly not a test… The question we then find ourselves asking is: how do we faithfully express our neighbourliness; how do we live as the neighbours that Jesus calls us to be?
In the kingdom of God, there is no reason for lambs to not be among wolves and this is why the 70 are being sent out – to to reveal the Kingdom of God – to demonstrate its nearness and not just proclaim it. This is about more than what they are about to do – the healing and casting out demons, etc. It is about how they are about to do it – as vulnerable lambs moving fearlessly among wolves.