“We ourselves have received astounding grace and mercy, whether we have deserved it or not. Jesus calls us to demonstrate that same grace to the world around us—especially when everything around us tries to make us hard-hearted and afraid.”
“Hear the prayers
that tumble from our hearts like fallen leaves,
and gather in your arms those we now name.”
O God of All Creation, hear us as we draw near to You, and place our hearts at your feet. For the long green season
Underestimating children and their acumen is a fool’s game. In the exhausting days of raising children, I and my friends would sometimes be startled by the wisdom that would come out of our children’s mouths.
“Because who we say HE is is also who we say we are if we are to bear his name in truth.”
This woman is an outsider on three important levels. First, she is a woman, approaching a strange man whom she does not know. Second, she is a Gentile, of Phoenician and Syrian heritage. Third, the inhabitants of the region of Tyre were typically prosperous, as it was a busy trading hub with a highly lucrative economy as compared to the poorer agricultural area from which Jesus came around Galilee, and so its inhabitants were often looked upon with resentment by their neighbors.
“Jesus, however, reveals a different standard for defining reality. Jesus comes into the world as part of God’s proclamation “God loves, therefore we are.” God freely sends God’s Son into the world as the Incarnate Word through love.”
“The “rebel Jesus” who didn’t just urge us to go along with the injustices of the world, or to throw a few sacks of coins into the lap of beggars, but who freed beggars from their marginalization, who dined with outcasts, and who called the powerful down from their thrones (as his own mother predicted).”
There are some, especially in this continuing pandemic, who are very fond of talking about freedom—especially when they are talking about themselves, without any concern for the fact that freedom is always balanced by responsibility and duty, especially to others, because all political freedom comes by being members of a body politic.”
“It strikes me anew every time I read the line about being chosen by God before time. Because much of the Christian thought that seems to dominate these days, that we see even in commercials on TV, starts from the other direction—it emphasizes that our relationship with God starts with our personal decision.”