The attempt to divide the world into tidy categories of oppressor and oppressed or victimizer and victim oversimplifies the more complex realities of histories and habits of sin and evil. While it is undeniably true that many people have suffered--and continue to...
The inherent legalism of the Western Church trains our eyes on Jesus' suffering as the judgment of God upon our sin & virtually blinds us to the more obvious point that Jesus suffered from the wickedness of humanity. It was the human race, not the Father, who...
Many of us are tempted to think that if we suffer, the only important thing is to be relieved of our pain. We want to flee it at all costs. But when we learn to move through suffering, rather than to avoid it, then we greet it differently. We become willing to let it...
Near the end of his [Jesus'] life, he struggles with a complete embrace of his mission. "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me," he says, hoping that perhaps suffering is not what God intends (Matthew 26:39). But somehow he realizes, through prayer and...
If we are faithful to Jesus, we will also be faithful to one another. We belong to one another. [Anyone who dedicates himself or herself to Jesus] will be united with other believers, and they will become so united that they are like one body. In the human body, if...
Years earlier I had read some writings of Jurgen Moltmann, a German theologian who argued that God "experiences" our sufferings and grieves with us. Our soul is so connected with God, he said, that it's impossible for the Divine Being not to share our aguish. Now...
When we begin to realize that God loves us with our weakness, with our vulnerability, with our failures, we can begin to accept them as an inevitable part of our human life. We can love others--with their failures--when we stop despising ourselves--because of our...
In true love it is not we who love the afflicted in God; it is God in us who loves them. When we are in affliction, it is God in us who loves those who wish us well. Compassion and gratitude come down from God, and when they are exchanged in a glance, God is present...
Mark depicts an entry which is triumphal only for Jesus' followers who have not yet understood his destiny as Son of Man. For Jesus, it is an entry into suffering and death. He enters Jerusalem as a pilgrim, and as more than a pilgrim. He makes no response to a royal...
The authors of the Bible did not have enough faith in humankind to believe that unrestrained pursuit of self-interest would promote common welfare. ...Government is the only power of the poor. It is not an intruder on the happy campers on the economic field....