“That’s why authenticity is important. That’s why telling our stories is important. That’s why, in our churches, it’s so important to work through our conflicts and set aside petty ego-issues in the service of loving one another. We are the beloved community.”
“Come and see,” Jesus tells his soon-to-be disciples when they ask him where he is staying. And this seems to me to be the best, short response to any theological question. Who is God? Who is the Christ? Come and see.
“Through all of this I was Christ’s. I’m with Richard Rohr when he says that the Soul is a God-seed (The Universal Christ, 2019). We are constantly in dialogue with that deep center within that is growing us into “what we will become” (1 John 3:2.)”
“In sitting with the teachers in the Temple, Jesus had made the decision to grow into who he truly was — Messiah. He had chosen to listen and learn from a cadre of top quality scholars who spent their days studying Talmud and midrash and discussing the meaning of scripture.”
“It is here on earth, in this world of corruption, evil, sorrow and darkness, that Christ meets us and claims us. When we receive him — when we see everything that exists in the light of a transformative love — we become children not of the desires and needs of the ego but of God.”
“For Paul, Jesus is the fulfillment of centuries of longing. He is the embodiment of the fulfillment of scripture. In the ways the world has of seeing, he is the son of David. From the point of view of the “spirit of holiness” he is the Son of God.”
“What had we gone out to see? That day, as the crowd around us cheered, we witnessed the total eclipse of the sun.”
“And Christ is with us, gazing into our souls with the eyes of the peace that passes understanding. Challenging us to risk, encouraging us to love, he goes before us, showing us the way.”
“Groaning with our Lord over images of caged children, starving, homeless families, incarcerated young men who did not commit the crime with which they were charged — this is being awake.”
“The realm of God is a place of deep, universal compassion and understanding, not a hierarchy of power.”