It seems difficult for us to distinguish between our “personal” relationship with God and the rampant individualism we practice in our politics. Do we dare keep voting according to our pocketbooks and private morality? Yes, we are God’s beloved, but so is everyone...
There is no such thing as redemptive violence. Violence doesn’t save; it only destroys—in both short and long term. Jesus replaced the myth of redemptive violence with the truth of redemptive suffering. He showed us on the cross how to hold the pain and let it...
This is what Jesus is exposing and defeating on the cross. He did not come to change God’s mind about us. It did not need changing. Jesus came to change our minds about God—and about ourselves—and about where goodness and evil really lie.
We worshiped Jesus instead of following him on his same path. We made Jesus into a mere religion instead of a journey toward union with God and everything else. This shift made us into a religion of “belonging and believing” instead of a religion of...
Jesus was not killed by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion—which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the will of God and are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who...
Temptation at its deepest level has nothing to do with key lime pie or chocolate fudge. Jesus' temptation, like ours, is, “What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”
It helps me to remember that Jesus prayed for a miracle on the night before He died. “For you all things are possible,” he prayed to his Abba. “Remove this cup from me.” Only when he opened his eyes the cup was still there. Did he lack faith? I do not think so. The...
Notice what happens in Luke 11 when the woman in the crowd starts praising Jesus as the object of adoration and his mother as blessed: Being made the focus of attention and adoration makes him nervous, perhaps even belligerent. He is the signpost, not the Sign, and so...
I am hearing this word as a word of achievement and completion. I am hearing this word as the same word Michelangelo uttered when he put his last touch of paint on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Jesus has fought the good fight, and despite what the soldiers, the...
I no longer see the Christian life as being primarily about believing. The Christian life is about entering into a relationship with that to which the Christian points, which may be spoken of as God, the risen living Christ, or the Spirit. And a Christian is one who...