A Fresh Perspective

Our Gospel text today is Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem. Mark’s telling of the story implicitly alludes to Zechariah 9:9 (which Matthew makes explicit in his version). The passage in Zechariah reads: “Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” The text doesn’t make any sense really. No king comes riding on a donkey. A king rides on a white stallion or in a chariot high above the crowd. The next verse from Zechariah clarifies the kind of king this is: “He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations.” Zechariah’s un-king is going to abolish all weapons of war. No more war, no more cruelty, no more violence. This no-king is humble and peace-seeking. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” said Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, “for they shall be called the children of God.” The reason they are called the...

For most evangelical Christians (and not a few mainliners), salvation is about going to heaven or hell. Once upon a time I believed that too. I was wrong. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I believe in an afterlife. I believe there is more to this life than this life. And I am sure it will be good, because God is good – as the song says, “God is good, all the time.” I believe that. If you believe that, then there is no need to worry about heaven or hell in the literal sense. God would not be good if God tortured people. Other people might torture us, and we might torture ourselves, but God won’t. While not literal, hell is still a reality though. And most of usually have to live through some “hells” before we reach “heaven.” Heaven is where love is, now and forever. I love this passage by Wendell Berry in his book, The Lost World : “I imagine the dead waking, dazed, into a shadowless light in which they know themselves altogether for the first time. It is a light that is merci...

In The Lord of the Rings there was the one ring to rule them all. If there is one Bible verse to rule them all it is John 3:16. If you learned just one Bible verse as a kid in Sunday School or VBS I guarantee it was John 3:16. We see that verse most often on billboards and held up on cardboard signs at sporting events. I haven’t watched a baseball game in quite a while. The thing that drives me crazy is when I’m watching a baseball game and the camera angle switches to the view almost directly behind the pitcher, and there behind the catcher in the stands you see this guy holding a cardboard sign with John 3:16. Then, when he realizes from the monitor that he is on television, then he starts waving it all around. That is the one time I could easily become a bible thumper, that is, I could take a great big bible and thump it over that guy’s head. But since I don’t believe in violence I wouldn’t actually do that. Did you know there is a fishing lure company called 3:16 lure company. I...

The wisdom of the domination system, the wisdom of the world can come to us disguised as the wisdom of God, and we can go a long ways and a long time thinking it’s the wisdom of God. For a good number of years my dominant image of God was that of a Judge who presided in a heavenly courtroom and demanded payment from his human creation for breaking his law. The God I imagined was bound to the law and intolerant toward sin. God demanded punishment. And not just any punishment. Punishment by death. So God sent Jesus, God’s unique Son, to die, so that God’s justice would be satisfied, and that God would be free to release the rest of humankind from the penalty and punishment they deserve for having transgressed God’s law and offended God’s justice. But then, at some point on my journey when I gave myself permission to question and even doubt, I began to wonder why God’s unique Son would have to die such a cruel death by execution in order to satisfy some broken law, particularly ...