When we stop clinging to what we know and what we are, we can go out into the world without fear, insecurity, resentment, and judgment, as true Children of God. The image of a playing child helps us see alternatives to our childish attitudes.
“Victimhood culture” has swept our nation in recent years where victimhood has become an identity to be ashamed of. However, Jesus teaches his followers to bear their victimhood without shame, just as he bore his own without shame.
How is the riven social body, with its divisions between poor and rich, to be healed?
The Pharisees were not wrong to question Jesus, but as much as we might want to empathize with them, to agree that there are simply certain things good people do not do, Jesus rejects human propriety as an orienting standard. Jesus is talking about the human heart, something Christians today also must consider.
The power of state in both Greco-Roman times as well as today hinges upon a hierarchal power structure. Jesus, however, calls us to compassion in a horizontal social structure.
Christ is the Lord of the storm. We can leave fear behind and cross over to the other shore.
Not merely a time for ‘leisure’ or ‘recharging’, the notion of sabbath involves deep concepts of justice.
At Easter we should remember that anger and fear cannot win, but that joy can.
It is the crucified Christ who sends us out to his sisters and brothers who are being crucified by the powers-that-be every day. Are we willing to do what Jesus requires and die in the process? Or will we deny Jesus in order to save ourselves?
Sometimes effective resistance necessitates speech or decisive direct action. Yet sometimes resistance also demands a tactical silence.
One of the most striking features of Jesus’s teaching and practice was its authority, which both liberated and bound his hearers. Does the Church dare to speak with authority today?