The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. Inside this aging body is a heart still as curious, still as hungry, still as full of longing as it was in youth. I sit at the window and watch the world pass by, feeling like a stranger in a...
It's easier to treat Jesus as a one-way ticket to heaven as opposed to following Jesus to the margins here and now: to feed the hungryto care for the sickto forgive debtsto welcome the stranger. But that's where Jesus is.And that's the kingdom come.
Jesus returns every time we forgive ourselves and others, love unconditionally, extend mercy, offer compassion, act with loving-kindness, feed the hungry, protect the oppressed, heal the sick, visit the prisoner, speak truth to power, make peace, seek reconciliation,...
Jesus never says to the poor: "come, find the church," but he says to those of us in the church: "go into the world and find the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned."
This is what God's kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there's always room for more.
Where is God? God is where we are weak, vulnerable, small, and dependent. God is where the poor are, the hungry, the handicapped, the mentally ill, the elderly, the powerless. How can we come to know God when our focus is elsewhere, on success, influence, and power?
God is not a being separate from the human. If you do not and cannot see God in the face of the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the sick, and the imprisoned, then you cannot see God at all. God is not an external being; God is present in the faces of the least of...
Those of us who are warm and dry and safe and well-fed must show up for those who are cold and wet and endangered and hungry. That's a rule of life. Every ethical and religious and spiritual tradition in the world agrees on that rule.
You cannot be a Christian without living like a Christian. You cannot be a Christian without practicing the Beatitudes. You cannot be a Christian without doing what Jesus teaches us in Matthew 25. It's hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or...
I don't preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry...