A Fresh Perspective

I love the story about the little boy who learned to tell time by listening for the chimes of their grandfather clock. One afternoon he was playing in the house while his mother was out working in the yard. The clock began to chime; he expected three chimes. It chimed once, twice, three times, then four times, five, six, seven, eight – the clock had malfunctioned. Totally disconcerted the little boy raced outside to find his mother, “Mommy, mommy, listen to the clock,” he screamed. His mother said calmly, “Billy, what time is it?” He exclaimed, “I don’t know, but it’s later than it has ever been before.” It’s true, you know. It is later than it has ever been before. Paul says to his readers, “You know what time it is, it’s time for you to wake from your sleep" (Romans 13:11-14). May that not be the Spirit’s word to us today gathered in this place this first Sunday of Advent? It’s time to wake up. If it’s time to wake up, then what is it that we are to wake up to?  It’...

Reza Aslan’s basic thesis in Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth is that Jesus was a failed revolutionary who was willing to use violence to overthrow the political and religious order to bring in God’s kingdom. He rejects outright the many teachings of Jesus about nonviolence, peacemaking, and love of enemies and dismisses as irrelevant Jesus’ refusal to resist his own capture and execution. Instead, he focuses on a few passages where Jesus says he didn’t come to bring peace: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! . . . Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three . . .” (Luke 12:49-53). Aslan’s argument can be easily refuted by historical scholarship, but we are still left to wrestle with Jesus’ teaching in the above passage. What is Jesus talking about? Reconstruction involves ...