Palm Sunday confronts every community that confesses Christ. The king who enters Jerusalem does not resemble the rulers people had learned to recognize. He does not arrive with armies or weapons. Instead, he embodies a kingdom grounded in humility, service, and reconciliation.
If the words of Paul sound harsh, it is because they are–and I am glad that they are. To those who treat other people as bottomless vessels for pain, Paul delivers these rebukes: “This is not lawful. This does not please God. Christ is not in this.”
Even with mounting evil and manipulative tactics to conceal evil, Lent reminds us that in order to fight death, our weapons must be truth and justice.
As a corrective to their corruption and total misconception of God’s character, Micah puts forth the disposition God requires – the triad to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with 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.”
Does being “without sin” mean never regretting anything, or getting everything right on the first try?
By subverting familial connections, Jesus is not undermining ties of affection but dismantling the social and economic security that comes with them, while simultaneously expanding the meaning of relationality.
The democratic experiment of the last few hundred years is itself simply a promise: that a people can make decisions on how to live together.
Mt. Carmel represents a very particular vision of Divine power, one dependent on a definition of power that equates it entirely with the strength to impose one’s will on another – even to the point of death. It’s an astonishing demonstration, yet also an extremist one, requiring power to equal unfathomable force: the unquenchable fire and Elijah’s subsequent unquenchable thirst to eliminate his enemies.
Faith in God must always be lived out through care and love for one’s neighbors.