An NPR Weekend Edition story profiles the kakure kirishitan, Japanese Christians who hid their religion after Christianity was outlawed in the late sixteenth century, and who
“I wasn’t expecting to get on – I thought the clergy were too conservative to vote for a progressive like me,”
In an interview with the Church of Ireland Gazette, he said that although the two churches now work closely together on a daily basis it was a source of “pain” that they still could not share communion.
The disciples accept Jesus as the Messiah, but they still don’t have a clue about what that really means. Jesus wants to take them up to the next level, to have them fully understand what it means to follow him. He tells them that to be a Christian means to serve, not to lord it over people.