A Fresh Perspective

The New Oxford Annotated Bible calls this an “apocalyptic parable” and Matthew probably intended it as such. However, in more recent times a growing number of biblical scholars and religious writers have rediscovered the ancient wisdom tradition that some of the early followers of Jesus embraced. These teachers, instead of putting all the focus on some future coming, would emphasize Christ’s coming to us right now, again and again and again. The last couple of weeks I have talked about “knowing God” and “loving God.” Today I want to talk about “meeting God,” not in some future apocalyptic event, but right now. If you have been listening to what I have been saying this may seem like a paradox, which it is. I said last week that there is a sense in which we are all spiritual beings, because the Spirit of God, the Divine Presence is the reality in whom we live, move, and have our existence as Paul told the Athenians in the story in Act 17. The challenge for us is allowing the Spirit ...

The story begins with the phrase: “The Lord appeared to Abraham.” But what is not clear is how the Lord appeared. The text says that Abraham saw three men standing near him. Three strangers wandering over to his tent in the heat of the day. Three travelers. But then when Abraham speaks the text says “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant.” Then he proceeds to offer the strangers rest and refreshment. He welcomes them and extends hospitality urging them to stay for a while and be refreshed, which hospitality they accepted. There is a lot of ambiguity here. Three men show up in front of his tent and in this encounter Abraham experiences God. Maybe so much is left out because when any of us experience God it is always a matter of faith. Such encounters are always ambiguous. Such encounters only make sense to the one who has the experience and can always be interpreted in other ways. Stories like this prepare us for the Christian teaching of incarnation where ...

In the story of the blind man healed by Jesus in John 9, the story is introduced by the statement: “As he (Jesus) walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.” Jesus saw a man who elicited compassion and understanding. On the other hand, his disciples saw a man rejected and condemned by God. “Who sinned,” they ask Jesus, “this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” The disciples are the ones who are blind. In the course of the conversations and interrogations that follow we also learn that the man’s neighbors, parents, and the religious leaders who investigate this Sabbath healing are also blind.  In May of 1968 two Roman Catholic priests, Daniel and Philip Berrigan (brothers), and seven of their Christian friends—two missionaries, a midwife, a nurse, a worker in race relations, and two others—walked into the draft board office in Catonsville, Maryland at the height of the Vietnam War. As an act of nonviolent protest and witness for peace, they took some draft ...

“When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Matt. 11:2) What sparks this question? Matthew introduces John the Baptist earlier in his Gospel as the Elijah-like precursor to the Messiah (see 3:1-12). He is pictured as an anti-establishment desert prophet prophesying outside institutional religion (the temple and the synagogue), calling Israel to spiritual conversion and renewal. He believes the kingdom of heaven/God is about to be realized through the Messianic mediator who will immerse people in a fiery judgment. The wheat and the chaff will be separated. John announces that the kingdom “has come near” in the person of the Messiah. The time is at hand. The ball is about to drop. “Even now,” says John, “the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” The righte...

When I say “the way up is down” I do not mean to infer this as a strategy for personal success, honor, or reward.   When the disciples were caught arguing about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of God, Jesus rebuked them and said, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). Jesus was not saying that downward mobility in this life is the way to acquire upward mobility in the next. Jesus was not laying out a strategy for accumulating rewards in the next life or for moving up in the pecking order. What he was saying is that in God’s kingdom there is no pecking order. It does not operate on the basis of meritocracy. God’s kingdom is not about being first or last; it’s not about winners and losers. It’s all about loving one another and being the servant of all, especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Jesus was, however, expounding the way to experience fullness of life in God’s kingdom now and later. This way involves relin...