Refractions

In the prophet Micah, it finally all comes down to three things – justice, kindness and humble companionship with God. And in Matthew’s rendition of the teaching of Jesus, we learn how deeply God is committed to those three things.   To hunger and thirst for righteousness, to practice mercy, and to foster a personal habit of meekness is so profoundly at the heart of God’s desire for us that Jesus proclaims that such actions are “blessed”.   Already blessed. It isn’t that they will be blessed – “pie in the sky, bye and bye.” Nope. Pie now , pie here for the meek, the merciful and those who hunger for God’s righteousness, for those who “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.” Justice, kindness and humble companionship are, however, demanding practices. The demand of justice requires of us that we not see ourselves as more entitled to the abundance of the earth than the other, even the Other whom we find different or frightening, or whose customs and habits we...

Simon and Andrew are seekers, followers of John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin and mentor. They are part of a reform movement within Jewish national life, a movement that seeks to restore the faithfulness of Israel to the mission of God. In the synoptic gospels, the movement’s direction and the heart of the matter is described as “the kingdom of heaven” or “the kingdom of God”, and Jesus is the focal figure who proclaims and enacts that kingdom and its ethic of love and justice. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus inaugurates something; his death and resurrection come to be understood as the embodiment of the sacrificial love in which the kingdom is founded, and the vindication of that love in the resurrection. In this fourth gospel, the focus shifts from “the Kingdom” to “the Lamb”. Much of what formed us as disciples in the church of the last several centuries has taken its cue from this shift, interpreting Jesus almost exclusively in terms of the atoning sacrifice (the lamb) of God – God...

Sometimes it feels as if all the lectionary gives us is sound-bites from the gospels. Because of that, it’s easy to see them as a collection of pixels instead of as a coherent picture of the ministry, death, and resurrection of the one we identify as the governing authority (“lord”) in our lives and in our life together. And sometimes we interpret Jesus so as to align with our preconceptions, rather than allowing his story to challenge them, break them open, and bring something new to light.   I wonder if that’s why, for example, we ask why Jesus had to be baptized if he was without sin. That is, I wonder if, having decided that baptism is all about washing sin away, we are confused by Jesus’ own baptism by John. I wonder if we might be willing to grant some authority to scripture and allow its account of Jesus’ life and ministry to change our minds about baptism. At the beginning of the events that bracket Jesus’ baptism are two identical proclamations:   “Repent, for the ...