A Fresh Perspective

The best wedding story I have ever heard comes from Robert Fulghum in his book, It was on fire when I lay down on it. It was a wedding he officiated that was produced on an epic scale by the Mother of the Bride, who Fulghum simply designates, the MOB. There was an eighteen-piece brass ensemble and gift registries spreading across most of the continental United States—with 24 bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower-petal-throwers, and ring bearers.   Fulghum says, "Looking back, it seems now that the rehearsal and dinner on the evening before the great event were not unlike what took place in Napoleon's camp the night before Waterloo. Nothing had been left to chance. Nothing could prevent a victory on the coming day. Nobody would EVER forget this wedding." The great day came. The plans were all working --until the climactic moment of the processional. Fulghum writes:    “Ah, the bride. She had been dressed for hours if not days. No adrenaline was left in her body. Left alone ...

Many folks, I think, regard Jesus as a huge success. Certainly Jesus attracted crowds. He healed people and there were those who were drawn to his teaching as well. But here in our Gospel story today Jesus says some things that result in many of his followers turning away. Jesus does not appear at all surprised by the loss. This is hard for those of us who buy into the notion that success must inevitably move us toward the bigger and better. As Americans we are so oriented toward material and numerical expansion that it’s hard for us to imagine Jesus teaching in such a way where his intent is to sift and filter out people. From the opening episode where Jesus feeds the multitude and then refuses to be king on their terms, there is a developing blindness and antagonism toward Jesus. Now this closed heartedness and antagonism spreads to and infects the group of disciples that have been following him. Jesus invites them to eat his flesh and drink his blood so they might enter...

  The story goes that General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was scheduled to deliver a message at a major convention to chart the future of the organization for the next 50 years. As the time approached, he became ill and could not attend in person; but he wired the message he wanted delivered. The people waited on the edge of their seats for the telegram.   When it arrived, the one chosen to deliver the message walked up to the platform, opened the telegram, and a confused, puzzled look came over him. There was just one word on the telegram. It was the word “others.”     In Philippians 2, Paul exhorts the church to focus on others. He says in 2:3–4: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” Clearly the focus is on “others.” To commend this way of life—this other–centeredness—Paul draws upon an early C...