A Fresh Perspective

Given the nature of reality in the world, science is able to predict certain things with great accuracy, like eclipses and full moons and the ebb and flow of tides. Our lives have been significantly improved by the discoveries and inventions that are based on predictable patterns in our world. Certain generalities regarding human behavior are also fairly predictable. For example, had we been born in India, there is more than a 99 percent likelihood that we would be Hindu, or something other than Christian. Our individual human freedom is limited by any number of factors besides just where we live, such as genetics, our early childhood experiences, the nurturing we received or didn’t receive, our opportunities or lack thereof, our education, and the list goes on and on. A lot of what we are, what we have, and who we become is based on luck of the draw, and many factors over which we have no control. However, we are not locked in. The good news we preach is good news because at the hea...

We should never assume that other Christians or even non-Christians familiar with Christianity have the same ideas or mean the same thing when we talk about salvation. I think most Christians, regardless of their background, tend to think of salvation as being delivered or rescued from some great peril. Now granted, Christians may have very different ideas about what that peril is we need to be rescued from, but most conceive of salvation in terms of rescue or deliverance. I think of the old hymn, “Rescue the perishing” as capturing for many the main stay of God’s salvation. Rescue from peril is certainly one image of salvation in our sacred scriptures, but only one. There are many images of salvation in our Bible. Other images include return from exile, making whole that which is broken, reconciling the alienated and estranged, being enlightened out of spiritual and moral blindness, experiencing spiritual life in place of death, experiencing liberation from oppression and bondage, m...

Today’s Gospel reading is a text that I think many Christians misread and therefore misapply. I said last week that Jesus knows the fate that awaits him in Jerusalem. The handwriting is on the wall. Jesus does not need any special revelation to know that the religious authorities want him out of the picture. He has preached and practiced an inclusive table fellowship, inviting all sorts of people who were disdained and considered unworthy by the gatekeepers. He intentionally violated laws that the religious establishment used to create a worthiness system to keep people under their control. He provoked them and challenged their authority in various ways. And when he leads a peace march into Jerusalem, which is what Palm Sunday is about, and then afterward when he stages a protest in the Temple, he seals his fate. He will perish at their hands. And, as I said last week, he also knows that unless his people change their ways they too will perish at the hands of the Romans. And a fe...

Well, let’s go ahead and admit it. This is a hard passage to hear. It’s a hard passage to hear because Jesus treats this non-Jewish woman so harshly. Mark says she was of Syrophoenician origin. Matthew calls her a Canaanite. But what both agree on is that she is a Gentile, a non-Jew. The hard thing about this story is that in Jesus’ initial response to this Gentile woman, he treats her with a harshness and a disdain that is so unlike the Jesus we read about in so many of the other Gospel stories. In story after story Jesus extends welcome and hospitality to all people, tax collectors and prostitutes, poor and wealthy, unreligious and religious, Samaritans and Gentiles. In an attempt to lessen the impact of Jesus’ words it has been pointed out by some that “dogs” were pets and members of the family as they are today. And while that’s true, it’s fairly obvious Jesus does not use the word here in a positive sense. And the fact is, most often when this word in used in ancient Jewish ...