The joy of Christmas is always mixed up with the grief of the world’s suffering. One need only look today at the very town the magi came to visit.
Whose job is it to praise God? Does praise require language or agency? Psalm 148 answers these questions in surprising ways, relativizing human uniqueness and inviting its readers to view themselves as part and parcel of the larger cosmic community of praise.
What happens when kings and rulers are confronted by a child whose very presence boldly proclaims that God is with us? Sometimes children have an astounding ability to disrupt the status quo. They resist passivity and compliance, they dream boldly and they demand justice. Who are our Immanuels today? And what do we do when we encounter them?
Kingship is an irredeemably hierarchical, patriarchal form of rule, right? Maybe not, says Psalm 146—if the king is God.
How do we then understand a biblical vision of peace relevant for our contexts today? Peace, from a decolonial theological perspective, is not a mere act of non-violence, nor is it about drawing peace plans from the perspective of the powerful global powers; rather, it is about the holistic well-being of the whole creation, coupled with justice, where life matters.
“Ideology asserts that something other than Jesus Christ awakens one from the world’s stupor, but no other force is adequate to the task.”
Jesus’s violent crucifixion exposes the inadequacy of Roman “justice” and raises important questions that are deeply relevant for today. For example, what aspects of our justice systems are designed—intentionally or unintentionally—to diminish human dignity and even dehumanize people?
This one, lone verse from a short New Testament epistle whose authorship is uncertain has had outsized impact on Christian perspectives on hunger: that we should be more worried about getting cheated than we are about neighbors going without food.
If the approach of Job’s friends is an unworthy model, then what else can we do as we listen to the complaints of those who continue to suffer bodily harm in our own time?
This parable is very much about the widow being a “new and unsettling force in the complacent life” of this unrighteous judge and the structures which incentivize his brutality. To speak of the widow in terms of unsettling force is anything but a stretch in this text. In fact, I think you might be surprised at the turn that is coming.
Luke’s account thus presses towards a re-imagining of community. Belonging is not guaranteed by purity or boundary maintenance but by practices of compassionate recognition.