A Fresh Perspective

Keep in mind that stories and particularly the parables of Jesus may mean different things, have different emphases in different contexts. It’s certainly possible that a story in the original life-setting of Jesus meant one thing, and then in the life-setting of the church years later meant something else. And no doubt these stories were modified and altered as they were orally passed down several decades before taking a particular written form. This is why New Testament scholars remind us that it is very, very difficult to speak with any certainty about the original form of a story, because the story has been modified through the many retellings of the story. It is helpful, I think, to consider this story about the father and his two sons (which is very different than Luke’s story about a father and two sons) in light of its placement in Matthew’s Gospel. Just prior to this story Jesus has engaged in three prophetic acts – he led a peaceful procession into Jerusalem on a donkey, ...

The scriptures of the Judeo-Christian tradition invite us into the human struggle for truth. They are not perfect from any angle and some texts should trouble us. The scriptures reflect the faith journeys and struggles of faith communities, therefore, we should expect to find in our scriptures contradictions, paradoxes, conflicts, and inconsistencies. When we struggle with the sacred text, we struggle with God, and that provides us with an opportunity to grow up, to evolve in spiritual consciousness. Creeds and doctrinal statements are basically distractions that invite people to avoid the struggle and, as a result, avoid real growth and transformation. My assessment of such documents is obviously biased, springing from the impact they have had on people I know. Creeds and propositional statements of doctrine offer single sentence answers that end the questioning and hence, the thinking, searching, and struggling with questions of faith. In the Gospel story of Matthew 2:1–12, t...

The dispute among the disciples arising from their aspirations for greatness in Mark 10 begins with a request posed by James and John to Jesus, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you” (10:35).   Before we get too critical of them it is important to be reminded that they had left everything—their fishing business, family responsibilities, all other commitments—to follow Jesus. Now they are looking for some reward. The question reflects, perhaps, where most of us begin the spiritual journey. Many of us come to God out of our need or want or some deep longing for meaning and for what is real. Sometimes we come to God out of our desperation. The bottom line of the gospel is that most of us have to hit some sort of bottom before we begin the real spiritual journey. We always need God—God’s forgiveness, grace, and provision for life. But if we are to grow and become more of the persons God longs for us to be, then we must move beyond preoccupation with ou...

There is a great story in the book, Report to Greco , by Nikos Kazantzakis. When Nikos was young, his mother was very religious; she went to mass everyday. His father was anti-religious; sort of bitter toward religion, and Nikos was torn. When he was 19 years old he decided to spend the summer at a monastery located on one of the mountains in Greece . At this monastery there was a famous old monk called Father Makarios.  One day, Nikos asked Father Makarios, “Father Makarios, do you still wrestle with the Devil?” Father Makarios said, “No. I use to wrestle with the Devil all the time. But now I have grown old and tired, and the Devil has grown old and tired with me. So I leave him alone and he leaves me alone.” Nikos asked, “Then life is easy now?” Father Makarios responded, “Oh no. Life is much harder now. For now I wrestle with God.” Nikos exclaimed, “You wrestle with God and hope to win?” “No,” said Father Makarios, “I wrestle with God and hope to loose.”  These t...