A Fresh Perspective

Brother David Steindl-Rast has contended in his writings that gratitude is foundational to a healthy spiritual life. If that is true, and I believe it is, then how might we expand our capacity for gratitude? Perhaps some reflections drawn from the story of Moses’ encounter with God in Exodus 33:12-23 can lead us along a path to gratitude. Moses says,   “If your presence will not go with us, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”   The sense here is that Moses is requesting some sort of visible presence – like the pillar of fire and cloud of smoke that accompanied Israel in the wilderness. For in this way, Moses says, we will be distinct from all other peoples. I read this as an example of first-level spirituality, which is a necessary part of our spiritual develop...

I don’t know if there is any truth to it or not, but the story is told that when Britain faced a critical shortage of silver during the days of WWII Winston Churchill launched a search of possible sources of silver. They discovered some sterling silver statutes of saints in some of their churches and cathedrals. When Churchill was made aware of this he said, “Well, it’s time to put the saints into circulation.”  This parable is about saints in circulation. Jesus is addressing his followers. In Matthew’s Gospel there are five major discourses attributed to Jesus, this parable is part of the last teaching block that begins in 24:1. Jesus and his disciples had just come out of the temple. His disciples were admiring the beautiful buildings when Jesus warned of the temple’s coming destruction. Then they walked over to the Mount of Olives and Matthew says that the disciples came to him privately with their questions about the destruction of the temple and end of the age. Tha...

I grew up with a theology that said all children are children of God—that is, until they reach the age of accountability. I was also indoctrinated into a belief in total depravity, that we are all born sinners and inherit a sin nature, so somehow we had to harmonize these two positions and the way we did it was by postulating an age of accountability. It’s kind of ironic because we prided ourselves in being Bible believers, yet there are no biblical texts that mention an age of accountability. We believed that a child was a child of God until that child reached a kind of semi-adulthood. When the child reached the age of accountability (and nobody really knew when that was which made for a nice loophole), then that child was no longer a child of God and had to believe certain things and do certain things in order to become a child of God. We believed that the child had to be “born again” in order to become a member of God’s family. I have since evolved in my thinking in what it mea...