“Leave the shallows and go to the deep,” Jesus told his friends. The big fish are out there in the deep. This was a life teaching not just fishing. Out in the deep is abundance and wisdom and love and healing and peace. Some people don’t catch these things because...
First, they were amazed at Jesus’ “gracious words.” A few verses later, they wanted to “hurl him over a cliff.” What happened? Jesus started off preaching but he got-to-meddling! Here’s what he said: 1.) The message and messengers of God are only welcome when they...
Back with “power” comes Jesus, Luke says. Power for the return to familiar surroundings as different. Power to be among people who raised you, only transformed. Power to teach where you formerly learned. Power to read the holy book differently–power to see yourself in...
“Some choose to be the forgetful community rather than the Beloved community. The forgetful community argues that if we keep a blind eye and choose mass amnesia, then in some distant future, that we have not worked for and do not deserve, all the brutality and blood...
When the bible finishes its story, we are left with an image. It’s a gathering of people, a family reunion. Every nation, language and tribe. We’ve all got on long white robes, and palm branches in our hands. And we’re singing, all of us. Singing, “thanksgiving, power...
Let’s begin at the beginning: God is the ultimate reality. This is dramatically made clear when God and Moses defeat the Egyptians–even clearer when God, through Jesus of Nazareth, defeats death. God is free and purposeful and relentless for the cause of love, because...
Remember, God the Author of the Big Bang; the One who hangs galaxies like we hang Christmas ornaments, with all power and wisdom at God’s disposal intervened in human history? Not with a conquering army. Not by placing controls on individual freedoms. Not by demanding...
Jesus’ mother, Mary, believed God has favorites. Listen to the lyrics of her hit song: God gives favor to those on the bottom. God shows mercy to those who reverence God and organize their lives accordingly. God’s strength is in preserving people through humility and...
“Political partisanship has no place in our speaking to the world on behalf of Jesus. It is beneath us. Is following Jesus inherently political? Of course it is! Jesus challenged people to bend the status quo toward justice and equity–that is political. Those were his...
“Every effective ministry I have ever known at its core is some lay person, deacon, priest or bishop personally joining Jesus in his purpose and then out of the overflow of that, in the tractor beam of that, asking others to join them. People on purpose is the best...
