Baptism is an initiation into our most sacred vocation—to become fully human and know ourselves loved by God. No moral system, no matter how good, can produce this vocation. We become human, not through morality, but by receiving and giving mercy.

I have always thought this to be an awkward Gospel story. Mary and Joseph lose their child and don’t realize it for a whole day! My sister has seven kids and forgot one at the mall once. But, Mary and Joseph only have one child—and they lost him? Talk about free-range parenting!

Advent gives us an excuse to consider again the nature of a God who comes to be with and in a people. If the Incarnation is anything, it is the God-in-flesh ONE who turns things upside down and inside out, simultaneously scandalizing and comforting us. This is the God we are waiting for and the God we will welcome—anew.

Welcome to the first week of Advent. If you are new to the liturgical calendar, Advent is the four Sundays leading up to Christmas and it marks the beginning of the liturgical year.

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Joyful thoughts come to mind whenever I see my niece Shaianne; none of them begin with the prefix “dis.” She uses a wheelchair, but I never think of her as disabled or disadvantaged.

Beautiful questions yield beautiful answers. They open space for the Spirit to work, and involve us in our own transformation. Ultimately, they free us to see in new ways and act creatively. On the other hand, small questions yield small answers. The Japanese word “mu” can be understood to mean “un-ask the question.” Mu is the appropriate response when the question is too small fortruth to emerge. Throughout the Gospels Jesus is, in effect, saying “mu.” He is helping us find larger more beautiful questions, and he uses questions of his own to get us there.

“I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

In the text we’re tackling this month, Jesus is accused of being “out of his mind”…and worse. The scribes accuse Jesus of being Beelzebul, a demon who casts out other demons. Jesus absorbs the deadly accusation and turns it into a teachable moment. That alone is worth a lifetime of reflection.

The ancient Greeks had four ways of talking about love. The highest, most idealized form was “agape,” which is divine love. It is the gold standard of love. The other forms of love were assumed to be lower, human or natural loves: “Storge” is the love of a parent. “Eros” is sexual or erotic love. “Phileo” is the love of a friend.

It’s cliffhanger season on TV right now. One of my favorite shows, “Grey’s Anatomy,” has their season finale tonight. I’m expecting something from Shonda Rhimes that will be both spectacular and frustrating. That’s the beauty of cliffhangers. When told well, they keep viewers expecting a great return next season.

We are approaching the 6th Sunday since Easter, and the circumstances of my life have seemingly all but erased the memory of the resurrection. I need a reminder of the Good News. At first glance, I’m not sure I get that from today’s text.

Jesus shows his wounds. He doesn’t hide them. They were not miraculously healed nor did they disappear. He was not completely “made whole” again. He continues to bear the scars of his crucifixion.

It’s Christ The King Sunday in which we celebrate the reign of Christ dawning in this age and in the age to come. But, as we’ve seen throughout the Gospel of Matthew, it is an unusual, upside down kingdom that redefines power and relocates God at the bottom, not at the top.

Joslynn, Nef, and Diane gazed thoughtfully during my clumsy response. They were confused about the many names Christians throw around. “What’s the difference between God, Lord, Jehovah, Jesus, Christ and all that?” was the question asked by some bright urban teens. Their continued attentiveness, a full ten minutes, was surprising. Even the most reticent-to-participate kid was listening carefully as clarity continued to elude me. So much for the notion that urban youth will only listen to Cardi B and The Migos.

I had a great conversation with a young man recently who was going to be baptized. I asked him what he thought about God and what he believes God thinks about him.

The striking contrast of two completely distinct, but adjacent worlds, startled my senses and threw me into a state of disorientation. We were in Kolkata, India as part of a weeklong city consultation for doctoral students. One morning, without any particular instruction, we hopped off a bus in a neighborhood swarming with people. Drawn up in the movement of the crowd, we found ourselves in the midst of a high festival day for the Hindu goddess Kali; the crowd was flowing toward her temple.

One of my brothers was a college football All-American. He broke and set many conference and national records. He was a Heisman trophy candidate his senior year, and the third pick in the first NFL draft. This was in the late 1970’s—well before social media. But for what it was, there was quite a bit of media attention that surrounded him.

In last week’s passage, we saw Jesus exorcising bad religion as he cast out the “impure spirit” of a man inside the synagogue. The reflection challenged the traditional reading of the text. What if the impure spirit didn’t so much reflect the possessed man? What if it was actually a reflection of the religious authorities?

During the season of Epiphany, I’ve committed to be more aware of the ways that God is present and at work in and around me each day.

John the Baptist appears in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and we are told that the “whole” Judean countryside and “all” the people of Jerusalem went out to him. It seems John has become quite the successful, suburban mega-church pastor with a huge commuter congregation. But he is clear that his show is not the best in town.

When the nativity tale declares, “there was no room at the inn,” I usually picture a robed man with a lantern sadly shaking his head “If you’d only gotten here sooner,” I imagine him saying, “I could have fit you in, but now, there’s no room.” But is this true?

I tried to sleep in a few weeks ago but failed to inform my children of this plan. My daughter came into the room and flipped the light on. “Ahhhh!” Pain shot beneath my eyelids…

It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Mark 13:24-37

I hate to wake up. Yes, it beats the alternative, but it is so painful. The mattress, pillow, sheets and comforter offer such warm friendship while the cold, hard, dusty floor promises only pain. Like a bully smacking his fist, the cold air waits knowing I have to pass by on my way home from school (or in this case to the bathroom). With all respect to Neil Sedaka, it is waking up, more than breaking up, that is hard to do.

Jesus must have known this. Why else would he say it not once, or twice, but three times, sounding like the parent of a slumbering teenager on a school morning. What event is important enough to warrant three exclamation points? The answer: “You do not know when the master of the house will come…”

So, we are to stay awake so the master won’t find us asleep when he returns? This sounds reasonable. Even if the boss doesn’t come back until tomorrow, it seems fair to ask us workers to stay awake. But what if the next day passes? And then the next and the next? Are we supposed to remain awake? After two weeks? After two months? After two years are we supposed to remain awake? And what, I ask, are we to do if the master delays his return for 2,000 years? Is it fair to expect us to remain alert, aware and awake? This is a bold request, especially in light of what happens in the next chapter.

I imagine the disciples were full of amens and assurances no matter how long Jesus delayed—just like pew mates on Sunday morning. Their zeal carried through the Passover meal, the hymn, and out onto the Mount of Olives where Jesus only asked of them two things: be present and stay awake. Simple enough until the wine…the lamb…and the non gluten free bread worked their magic, causing every disciple to fail Jesus’ second request. They fell asleep not once, or twice, but three times. The master hadn’t even gotten out of the driveway before the servants were snoring. If such was true of Jesus’ first disciples, how can we be expected to remain alert after 2,000 years? Having failed in Jesus’ second request, the disciples quickly failed at his first. When the soldiers arrived, “then” Mark writes, “everyone deserted him and fled.”

Be present and stay awake. Perhaps there is another kind of invitation in Jesus’ words. Had Jesus been speaking today, he may have said something like, “Stay woke, cause you don’t know when I’ll show up.”

Jesus showed up at our food and clothing bank a few weeks ago. She was pushing a shopping cart and arrived late, of course. I knew her to be a notoriously tardy shopper near impossible to get to leave, so I told her to come back next week. Her face, already hanging low, fell even further, “I just need some clothes.”

“We’ll fix you a bag of food.”

“Yes, but I still need a change of clothes,” she said a little louder.

“I’m sorry but we’re closing.”

Flakes of mascara became dark rivers as she cried even louder, “I’ve been wearing these clothes for four days and I can’t take it any longer.”

Like I said, it is hard for me to wake up. Sometimes it takes three alarms. “Of course, yes, what was I thinking. Come down and let’s get you some clothes.”

I used to question the sanity of the lectionary elves. In what world does it make sense to start the Christmas season with a passage about eclipses, falling stars and thunderous heavens? How could Santa find us in such extreme weather conditions? As time has passed, I’ve awakened to their genius. Advent is an opportunity to practice arrivals, not just of reindeer ornaments, Bing Crosby and tinseled presents, but of the God who shows up in unexpected ways, and unexpected places, through the features of human faces. Wake us up, O Lord, wake us up.

Ken Sikes
Senior Fellow | Street Psalms
Pastor | Manitou Park Presbyterian Church
Tacoma, Wa

In one of my favorite Ted Talks, Educational Technology Specialist Sugata Mitra discusses his experiments with “Hole in the Wall” computers. These are computer kiosks left in Indian slums, among children with no prior contact with PCs. Mitra found that children, by pooling their knowledge and resources, learned how to operate the computers.

If we view this parable through the lens of an honor-based culture, not a wealth-based culture, then this parable unlocks beautiful truth about where the Kingdom of God is located.

This week marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther famously nailing his 95 theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg. The action brought attention to the rampant abuse inherent in the ecclesiastical structures of his day. 

In this week’s text the religious leaders are trying to trap Jesus with a question about whether Jews should pay taxes to Caesar. But this isn’t really a question about taxes. It’s more sinister.

I’m told there is no utility in my delusions but yet I choose to imagine, envisioning a world of fellowship and joy. In this, my alternate global reality, wooden ships are ushered through placid seaways as steady breezes push against their ample sails, all adorned with the sacred symbol of the cross.

“No! No! No!” My two-year old son screamed as we drove down the interstate at seventy miles per hour. “I want the door open!”

¹⁸ “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. ¹⁹ Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.”

Matthew 18:15-20

In one of my favorite Ted Talks, Educational Technology Specialist Sugata Mitra discusses his experiments with “Hole in the Wall” computers. These are computer kiosks left in Indian slums, among children with no prior contact with PCs. Mitra found that children, by pooling their knowledge and resources, learned how to operate the computers.

More remarkably, he found that in nine months the children had computer expertise equivalent to that of a professionally trained Western secretary, and all this without any adult instruction or supervision. These impoverished children went far beyond any trivial computer operations, mastering understandings of character mapping and DNA replication. One group of children chided Mitra, telling him “You have given us a machine that only works in English, so we had to teach ourselves English to use it.” What Mitra sees as self-organized, self-promoting “Unstoppable Learning” can also be described as a mystically exciting feature of divine creation.

I’m sure Sugata Mitra’s friends, peers, and colleagues thought it an absolutely reckless idea to waste a valuable resource, such as a computer, by leaving it among the poor, ignorant children of India’s slums. What Mitra seems to have understood, and what his critics would have missed, is that all humanity has a blessed yearning and ability to figure things out. The little children of India’s slums have demonstrated that, by pooling knowledge and resources, the mysteries and conundrums of both heaven and earth can be unraveled, decoded, and resolved.

Jesus is no less reckless in instructing and entrusting us to pool knowledge and resources to figure out and resolve the mysteries and conundrums among us. He radically moves further to suggest that whatever we resolve here on earth will be honored and instituted in heaven. What an overly generous power we have been given. But why so underused? Perhaps it is a matter of pedagogy.

In the case of the children in Indian slums, they were left with no pedagogical resources, except for their community of peers, with whom they figured out the big questions placed before them. No doubt the process of mastering the use of the computers was wrought with disagreements, doubts, and conflicts. But it was the children’s ultimate points of agreement and affirmation that yielded the fruits of progress among them. Is it an over-reliance on a pedagogy based on hierarchies, traditions, and institutional processes that has robbed us of the childlike courage of these Indian slum kids, who embraced mysterious keyboards and curious screens with excitement, joy, and wonder?

Matthew speaks earlier about Jesus teaching the people, as in Chapter 5:2, “And he opened his mouth, and taught them…” The word “taught” here is rendered in a grammatical form know as a causative, which indicates that, unlike our typical top-down pedagogical approaches, Christ presents a new argument to the conversation, one that sparks or causes a new process of learning.

This is kind of like placing a computer before the slum kids and watching the thrill of a new process of learning as it quickly emerges. Like Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall,” Jesus plants us in an unexpected environment of extreme grace, liberty, and fellowship, where we are to work through disagreements, doubts, and conflicts and emerge with extraordinary community affirmations, harmonious fruit suitable to nourish both the heavenly host and the earthly masses.

As Mitra’s experiments have evolved, he has employed the services of an international collection of grandmas, who have the sole job of encouraging the children as they tackle the tough questions packaged within the computers. I trust the Holy Spirit plays the role of grandma in our quest to work through the big messy questions confronting our faith, making a big fuss over the smallest of our accomplishments, filling us with confidence and courage as we struggle together through our most difficult issues, and daily filling our hearts with joy. Jesus downloads powerful gifts into the slums of our brokenness, sharing with us the binding of things in heaven and on earth. To some this may sensibly point to an absolutely reckless pedagogy “but to us who are being saved, it is truly the power of God.”

Tim Merrill
Founder and Director | Watu Moja
Camden, USA

P.S. You can view Sugata’s entire TED Talk Here!

“Who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah,
the Son of the living God.”

Matthew 16:15-16

The camp speaker joined us in our cabin and Harry was on the edge, struggling with Jesus again. Harry had been to camp many times and each time he’d said “yes” to Jesus. Each time he meant it. And each time he returned to his neighborhood where the peaceful clarity of summer camp gave way to the reality of violence that eventually swallowed him up.

The camp speaker, who had seen too many urban kids succumb to forces too big to deny, was pushing Harry hard. I sat silently, unsure what to do. Harry’s friend, named Junior, finally stepped in and said, “That’s enough!” Junior said that Harry had been to camp five times and each time he said “yes” to Jesus and each time he returned to the neighborhood where things got confusing. Each time he felt worse for having denied Jesus. Junior suggested that maybe Harry’s “denial” of Christ back home was harder on Harry than it was for Jesus.

Emboldened by Junior’s words, I asked the camp speaker to back off. The speaker left our cabin dismayed (mostly with me).

A year later Harry was dead, gunned down in the street by rival gang members, only a few blocks from my house.

In this week’s text, Jesus takes his disciples to Caesarea Philippi. It was the farthest away from Jerusalem Jesus ever travelled, (except as an infant, when his family fled to Egypt as refugees from state sponsored violence). Far away from the pressure cooker of Jerusalem, Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am? Peter responds with clarity, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16).

Not long afterwards, the clarity Peter found in Caesarea Philippi was swallowed up by the fear and violence of Jerusalem. Peter denied Jesus three times.

One way or another, we’re all headed for Jerusalem.

In retrospect, maybe I should have let the camp speaker push Harry further. Maybe I denied Harry the opportunity to name Jesus as the Christ one more time. Maybe I denied Harry again when we returned from camp and he came by my house one evening; he offered me his gun as a way to protect myself in a heated summer of violence. It was a generous and kind offer. I refused the gift. Maybe I denied Harry yet again when I stopped hosting our regular gatherings in order to reach out to younger kids. I denied Harry a lot more than three times and I am not alone.

Maybe I’m thinking about this because summer is coming to and end. I’ve enjoyed some underserved but much needed time away where I’ve experienced glimpses of clarity about Jesus, myself, and our mission. And yet there is a pit in my stomach. Jerusalem beckons. I’ve seen what happens when one sets their face toward Jerusalem. I know too well my own cowardice. A big part of me wants to stay in Caesarea Philippi and ponder what I’ve seen.

Harry was killed nearly 25 years ago. I don’t know if Harry is Peter or Jesus, or just a kid whose life has marked me forever. What I do know is that Harry keeps me honest about the Gospel and this crazy, beautiful, mixed up world. Harry bridges the gap between Caesarea Philippi and Jerusalem and beckons me to cross it. He insists that we proclaim a Gospel big enough to honor him as herald of Christ, denier of Christ and Christ himself, all the while being Harry, a kid from Portland who loved going to camp, and who is calling us back into the city where Christ is fully and finally revealed as the merciful one, not in spite our denials, but because of them.

Kris Rocke

Executive Director

Tacoma, Washington

²⁸Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
²⁹He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.

Matthew 14:22-33

Even the Muscle Dudes’ Knees Were Shaking.

Muscly New York City dudes ascended the multitiered stairway, making their way to the “H-2 Oh No” Waterslide somewhere out among the beauty of New Jersey’s Kittatinny Mountains. Yes, New Jersey does have a little mountain grandeur and yes, these hard-accented tough guys did break out into knee-shaking fear as they reached the top of the platform and gazed down at 100 feet of pure vertical terror. Most who approach this slide quickly change their minds, fearing it a bit too suicidal. But not Edwaan, he was a young man of faith.

Edwaan was a constantly-smiling kid, always ready for fun and adventure. His given name was Edwin but he loved It when I substituted a prolonged “a” for the “i” in his name, often extending the “a” to comical lengths as the situation dictated — sometimes Edwaan and other times Edwaaaaaaaan. His life drastically shifted with the death of his grandfather, who was the mortar that held together a fragile family. After he passed, Edwaan’s mother fell into catastrophic relationships and the deeper catastrophe of drug abuse. Once pampered by an attentive and caring mother, Edwaan soon experienced neglect and new levels of vulnerability. Curiously, the dramatic changes in his life never seemed to affect his faith. He had Peter-like faith.

Peter is best known in the Gospels for cluelessness, unchanneled aggression, and his lack of faith, like we see in today’s Gospel reading. That makes “Peter-like faith” a problematic concept. Jesus himself casts doubt on Peter’s faith in verse 31, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

And while the issues of Peter’s faith and loyalty inspire frustration and angst, I find his actions in verse 28 to be fascinating, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” The request is curiously complex. He neither requests a calming of the winds and waves, nor to have Jesus come aboard and comfort the terrified crew. Instead, he requests an invitation to dwell with Jesus — out on an angry sea. This ridiculous request points to a longing in Peter’s heart to move beyond rhetoric and symbolism and straight to salvific action in the midst of real danger — in the midst of real life.

Like Peter, like Edwaan, and like so many of us, there is a longing for belief out on life’s “danger waters” — those places removed from the placid nature of peace and plenty. Persecution, pain, and tragedy inspire deep longings, often taking the shape of foolhardy propositions such as Peter’s, “Save me in these dangerous waters or watch me die.” Later, Jesus chides Peter for his lack of faith, but I’m sure I would have been similarly guilty. Imagine the disorientation of being uniquely alive after a desperate invitation that rationally assumes a watery death. Such faith is deep, daring, ridiculous, and powerful — an Edwaan-like faith.

Painful upheavals in Edwaan’s world heightened his longing to realize active salvation. This, our common longing, worked itself out between us as invitations into our respective danger waters. So, as I told Edwaan to just keep his eyes straight forward and let go, he did so, assured he would die. Edwaan’s friends, tough guys from tough neighborhoods, watched with amazement as the least heroic of them hydroplaned down the imposing slide, embracing the frightening adventure. They quickly lined up and entered this faith, taking the swift ride down the “H2 Oh No Waterslide.”

Peter was not at the cross to experience the strange disorientation that comes when salvation amid the danger waters seems to have failed — when it feels like you have actually drowned. I could not escape such alienation as I was called to join Edwaan out among his danger waters on a warm summer night in 2004. This time a storm of bullets had him laid out cruciform on the dark asphalt of Ferry Ave. As his life slipped away, the police prevented me from coming out to where he was, reaching out and catching him. Our faith is truly tested in such waters, as our focus fades and Jesus’ face becomes obscured within the blends of horrid screams, pain-driven rage, and blood-soaked streets. The reality of such tragedies calls us to live as communities that request invitation into each other’s danger waters. For we are certainly not called to dwell on such painful seas alone.

Within communities committed to living among both our common and extraordinary perils, we find the power to embrace frightening adventures, faith to understand that there is life after the cross and after blood stained asphalt, and healing for the wounds and scars inflicted as we lose those we love so dearly. We are called to the danger waters within our own lives and those of our community. And it is precisely in the midst of those danger waters, the places even the “muscle dudes” won’t go, that we often encounter the living God.

Tim Merrill
Friend of Street Psalms
Founder and Director, Watu Moja

³⁵“I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.”

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

The Jesuit Father, Anthony de Mello wrote that the shortest distance between a human and Truth is a story. In Matthew 13, Jesus tells a variety of stories (parables) to describe the kingdom of heaven. We move from mustard seed (a weed) planted amidst a crop in a field to the image of yeast, to a treasure hidden in a field, to fine pearls and then, in perhaps the most striking of all, we are told that the kingdom of heaven is like a net (v. 47-48).

The fishing technique of Jesus’ day incorporated the use of a dragnet. These are quite removed from modern day sport fishing with its variety of tailored lures and exact test-line — all used to land specific fish during specific seasons. The fishing culture in Jesus’ day was markedly different. The dragnet was tied to a weight that would go down to the bottom and scrape up everything from bottom feeders to the fish on the surface and all that came in between. It’s the least strategic way you can fish.

If Jesus’ real subject here is the spreading of the good news (euangelion) of the kingdom of God then the dragnet seems a wasteful (un-strategic) way to do the mission of evangelism. For the selective and economical evangelism today, the stated goal is to be very specific about the kind of “prize fish” strategically reached for Christ, carefully using particular evangelistic lures (techniques). In contrast, using a dragnet is a messy way to fish, and when applied to fishing for souls, it sure makes for complicated evangelism.

Why are we tempted to engage in what we think are better ways to “fish” than what Jesus taught? Aspiring evangelists (anglers) try to get really good at “winning souls for Jesus” using a host of freshly painted, pristine, specifically designed lures (programs, events, strategies and media). After all, we reason, in our modern world we certainly have better tools and techniques than Jesus’ disciples ever had.

It is difficult to argue for a dragnet ministry today, and even more difficult to fund, but if we are going to cross over vast dividing lines of separation and rejection, we must pursue it.

While the dragnet approach may sound like the opposite of what some theologians have described as the “scandal of particularity,” it is rather the other side of the same coin. Jesus was at once particular in his approach to individuals and scandalously indiscriminate about whom he loved.

The dragnet of God’s love reminds us that we must be careful about being too caught up in our evangelistic tricks and techniques that tempt us to selectively pursue “trophy fish.” With the dragnet approach, we’ll likely catch something we do not expect or even want and thus will be tempted to throw it back. However, the key is learning to live with and rest within the tension of a net that scoops up everything.

Last week our lectionary text invited us into the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matt. 13:24-30). Tares and wheat look so similar to one another that even the experienced farmer finds it very hard to tell the difference. Thus, Jesus instructs the workers to let the two grow together lest they attempt to remove the tares and inadvertently uproot some of the wheat in the process.

To have a dragnet ministry, we need to cultivate a wheat and tare discipline — one that humbly recognizes our limitations to often successfully discern the difference between good and evil. This is crucial because when we cast a dragnet among the least, last, and lost, we scoop up some strange specimens indeed, and the temptation is then to protect our ministry from the “bottom feeders” by separation — “I can’t have that gang member in my youth group. He will mess up everything.” Or “that girl with tight jeans from a non-Christian family is going to be a bad influence on the impressionable church kids. We must keep her away from our kids.”

This is why so many ministries are designed for only a particular kind of fish. If we cannot accommodate the “bottom feeders,” we end up prioritizing programs over people and adjusting our message to fit our program. Dragnet ministry in hard places is chaotic and messy. It sometimes only works as it did with Jesus, a dozen people at a time.

Looking at what our big net scooped up, we are tempted to take the job of separating wheat and tares into our own hands. However, boundary-breaking ministry demands that we humbly admit we should leave the separating for the harvest time. What might it mean to run a dragnet ministry with wheat and tare inclusiveness?

And if that’s not enough, it’s important to remember that an irony hidden in plain sight within this metaphor is that bottom feeders are some of the oceans most sought after delicacies (e.g. oysters, lobster, etc.). Not only that, but modern science has helped us learn they are also some of the most nutrient-dense of all their compatriots. The fisher who throws them back is the real loser in this metaphor.

Are we sport-fishing for the fish we think we desire, or laying a dragnet that brings in all kinds? Are we trying to sort our crops before the harvest or trusting the sower to do the harvesting? If we dare, a dragnet ministry with a wheat and tares discipline radically broadens access to the one whose cross welcomes all.

Joel Van Dyke

Director, Urban Training Collaborative

Guatemala City, Guatemala

*Adapted from Chapter 11 of Geography of Grace.

 
 
“A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away.

Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.”

Matthew 13:3-7

I look for God’s activity in my life through the very mundane things that occur each day. Today was one of those days.

I looked down at my cell phone when it rang. It was a number that I was familiar with. Whenever this number pops up, I have to make a few quick decisions: Do I have time to talk? Do I have the energy? At the most, it’s a 10-minute phone call.

I’ve had my fair share of these calls from friends who are serving time in a correctional facility. Do people just want to catch up and talk? Or do they need money put on their books? Or do they want me to locate a family member? Do they want to talk about the NBA playoffs? Or do they want to talk about God?

I figured I had 10 minutes. I sat down. And I answered.

We greeted each other with our normal “Wassup? How you been doin’?” stuff. We talked about the latest happenings both “out here” and “in there.” And then out of the blue:

Him: Hey, you remember that story in the Bible about the Sower and the seeds?
Me: Yep. (side-note, this particular passage is not one of my favorites….)
Him: Lina, I have been every type of soil you can imagine. You know that. I’ve been so reckless with my life. I’ve been rocky, thorny, unproductive – just bad soil. But God keeps after me. God is still sowing. After all this time. I don’t know why. He is so good. Why hasn’t he quit on me?

We chatted a little longer about that, and then we hung up. Without thinking too much about our conversation, I sat down at my computer to see what passage I would be writing about today. As I looked at the revised common lectionary passages for this week, here it was… my favorite: “The Sower and the Seeds.”

My friend’s question was the absolute right question. It was a beautiful question. Because it takes us to the heart of the story – which really isn’t about the SOIL so much but rather the intent of the Sower.

What Sower would sow seeds among thorns or a stony path? Who would knowingly sow where birds would swoop down and devour the seeds? Who would sow seeds in places where there was no chance of flourishing. And while there was seed that fell on good soil, the nagging question remains, what about those other seeds that were wasted?

Either the Sower was not very good at the job or they knew something about the soil that we do not.

Or perhaps the Sower has an abundance- an endless amount of seeds – to WASTE – to sow lavishly in hopes that somehow, some way, even the seeds that fell into bad places would have a chance to sprout even a little bit.

This parable isn’t first about seed or soil. It is first about the lavish, extravagant nature of God.

“Why is God wasting His grace on me?”

It was a profound, beautiful, deeply theological question that didn’t come from the halls of academia but from a state correctional facility. It came from an inmate, a friend, pondering the soil of His own life and the seeds of Grace that have fallen his way. Even he sees that those seeds are redeemed, regardless of the soil. Every. Last. One.

This is the Economy of God…where Grace is sown in such an abundant fashion – and is wasted on soil that isn’t even all that productive – or at least that’s what it looks like. That seems so wrong and offensive. And scandalous. And – well, it just seems like Grace.

Lina Thompson
Pastor, Lake Burien Presbyterian Church
Longtime Friend and former Board Chair, Street Psalms

 
 
“And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

Matthew 10:40-42

Our Gospel reading this week draws from just three little verses at the end of an incredibly dense Matthew 10. The chapter is full of missional directives, which are bookended by the topic of missional hospitality we find in verses 40-42.

There will always be a call for disciples of Christ to “go out” and “live into” the harvest, embracing an often harsh and not-so-inviting world through the artful dance of Gospel subversion. Those sent will need to depend on the hospitality of others. Jesus says of missional hospitality, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” (Matthew 10:40).

In the world of the New Testament, identity was intimately tied to family and community. The act of welcoming someone was more than embracing an individual; you were embracing the entire community who had done the sending as well as the family whom the “sent one” represents. Therefore, welcoming a disciple of Jesus meant (and still means) receiving the very presence of Jesus himself along with the one who sent him.

For the past 15 years, Street Psalms has experienced missional hospitality through the planning of and participation in vision trip experiences in partnership with colleagues around the world. (You can read more about how we see the distinction between vision and mission trips here.)

This past April, four fathers from Tacoma, WA traveled to Guatemala City with their sons to engage in a unique father/son vision trip. We spent significant time discussing the gift of blessing; our classroom was the dance of the Spirit within the hospitable soul of the Guatemalan people. As a part of our trip, the participants embarked on a journey to discover what it meant for fathers to bless their sons in the spirit of the Father’s blessing of Jesus: “I love you and I really, really like you.” (“This is my son whom I love, in him I am well pleased.”)

One afternoon, I had the privilege of accompanying the group to a large informal settlement (La Esperanza) on the outskirts of Guatemala City. A family from the ministry network of CMT Guatemala has chosen to live there. Ageo and Irma Perez, along with their sons Angel and Samuelito, open their humble home in the afternoons and weekends to the children of La Esperanza.

We arrived just as a Bible study was beginning. They asked me to come forward to bring the children greetings from the visiting group. I hadn’t planned anything ahead of time, so I was spitballing a little and decided to grab 14 year-old Mitchell, asking him to share with the children in Guatemala a little about his life in Tacoma. When he finished, I asked the children if any of them had questions for Mitchell. To my dismay, none of them responded. So, in a minor panic, I looked for the one little girl whose name I knew — 6 year-old Graciela.

“Graciela,” I asked, “do you have any questions for Mitchell?” A sheepish smile crept over her face…after a pregnant pause she proclaimed, “No tengo ninguna pregunta pero quiero que él sepa que Dios le quiere bendecir. Que Dios te bendiga Mitchell.” (I don’t have a question but I want him to know that God wants to bless him. May God bless you, Mitchell). It was a life-changing encounter with resplendent missional hospitality for the 14 year-old “missionary.” A cup of cold water (grace) had just been delivered to the “little” disciple on the vision trip, and it will take a lifetime for him to unpack the significance of the reward he received that day from Graciela’s blessing.

To understand God’s mission, and how the church reflects that mission, we need to celebrate the cupbearers of cold water — the Gracielas of the world who proclaim the blessing of scandalous Grace. They, who hospitably receive those “sent by the Lord,” may actually embody the key to authentic Gospel expansion. They, in fact, are the one’s who are “sent.”

“Go” and “receive those who are sent” — waiting for you is the smile of Graciela’s resplendent blessing of scandalous grace.

Joel Van Dyke
Director, Urban Training Collaborative
Guatemala City

 
 
¹The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day.

Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)

 
 
“When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you…. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

John 20:19-23

For many in the United States, the end of May is full of graduation parties for aspiring high school seniors — a transition into a new life as adults. While exciting, for student and parent alike, the season can also be filled with fear and doubt.

We are six weeks removed from the narrative journey of Holy Week that led us through the crucifixion, the disorientation of Holy Saturday silence and the unbridled joy of an empty tomb. “The resurrection is God’s Amen to Jesus’ statement, ‘It is finished,'” writes S. Lewis Johnson.

While the tomb that had held Jesus is now empty, our lectionary text introduces us to disciples who are staring at a very different world than the one they were comfortable with. There has been a “graduation” of sorts, and now they feel paralyzed, incapable of moving forward, self-entombed behind walls of fear, doubt and disillusionment. They have not yet experienced the truth of the resurrection; they cower in fear behind locked doors and covered windows.

Here, in the midst of that darkness, Jesus shows up to his group of graduating seniors and delivers a commencement address — life’s great forward-looking ceremony. He slips into the room as the forgiving victim and vividly creates the experience of Easter. His delivery may be more important than the message because the resurrection cannot be explained; rather, it must be experienced. When it comes to life’s deepest mysteries, experience trumps explanation every time! When it comes to the resurrection, the Gospels offer no explanation as to how it happened. Instead, we are given a series of personal encounters with the risen Christ delivering mini commencement addresses that forever change the world.

The first word from the resurrected God, in a locked room of “graduating” disciples drowning in doubt and shaking in fear, is “Peace be with you.” He then lovingly shows them his wounds, and commissions them to be ambassadors of forgiveness for the world — the very forgiveness they are now experiencing. And then, the risen/wounded one performs a stunning act of intimacy. He “breathes” on them.

The breath of God is the kiss of God that remakes the world. In this divine kiss Jesus is modeling the very core of mission, “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” In kissing us into existence Jesus empowers us to do the same — to forgive as God forgives, in a courageous act of union and communion. This is the meaning of the kiss. This is how creation and re-creation unfolds. The disciples have been “commenced.” They are kissed into the world anew, addressed to be a blessing to the waiting world around them.

Sadly, many of us have yet to experience the kiss of the risen Christ. We have perhaps heard the “words” of commencement but have avoided the terrifying, life-giving experience of encounter with the commencer. As a result, we “retain” (bind up) the sins of others and spend precious time and energy justifying our self-destructive behaviors of rivalry, bitterness and resentment. Jesus addresses us all with these forward-minded words and actions of this commencement address.

Mercifully, the risen Christ continues to deliver his commencement address even today by entering the locked rooms where we, like the disciples before us, self-entomb. He gently and gracefully (with a kiss) enters the doubt, fear and disillusionment of our lives. All he asks is that we allow ourselves to be breathed upon, knowing full well that the person kissed by the risen Christ will naturally and eagerly participate in the ongoing act of Creation itself.

This is the glorious truth of what it means to be “commenced.” We have been addressed with the kiss of the resurrected Jesus and are invited to leave the rooms of self-locked doors that have previously held us captive. The world awaits the touch of graduates who have been kissed into life by the resurrected Lord.

“Oh God, hear our prayer!! Easter yourself within, around and between us that we might receive your kiss and thus, as bright-eyed graduates, experience you as the dayspring that dissipates our dimness.”

Joel Van Dyke
Director, Urban Training Collaborative
Guatemala City

“I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and will find pasture.”

John 10:1-10

Street Psalms leads a collaboration of 13 training hubs (UTC) in cities around the world; together, we seek to develop incarnational leaders who love their cities and seek their peace. We have a strong sense of what UTC Hubs are called to do on a communal level. But, we can sometimes lose sight of where we, as individual leaders, are guiding people to on a personal level.

This short poem arrived in my inbox the other day. It has haunted me ever since:

“I lost my identity trying to fit into your shadows,
until I realized you reek of an emptiness no one can fill.”
– Tasneem Kagalwalla

While the poet here wrote as one deeply disappointed in the emptiness of the other (likely a failed romance), it left me considering my legacy of leadership as a spouse, father, pastor and ministry leader. How many people do I erroneously lead down a path into the emptiness of shadow? While our UTC Hubs are successfully calling forth incarnational leaders for their cities, what is the destination for those close to us who follow the trajectory of our lives on a personal level?

Richard Rohr wrote a very compelling book exploring a spirituality for the two halves of life entitled, “Falling Upward.” He writes, “your shadow is what you refuse to see about yourself, and what you do not want others to see….We never get to the second half of life without major shadowboxing and I am sorry to report that it continues until the end of life.” When I live my life out of an alignment to misplaced desires (what Ignatius referred to as “inordinate attachments” or “disordered loves”), I lead others to a destination filled with shadows — the fake news of my own invention.

A key for authentic leadership is the ability to confront your shadows. Failing to do so leads others to a destination of falsehood and emptiness. Authentic leaders, often rising out of personal suffering and failure, learn to embrace the necessary courage to shadowbox with an acknowledged foe.

I have sat with this week’s lectionary text from John 10 on many occasions. What struck me this week, in light of the piece of poetry above, was verse 9, where Jesus says that the sheep he leads will find pasture.

Much has been written about the Biblical imagery of shepherd and sheep. Sheep, as has been well documented, are dumb animals that can only live under the care and protection of a shepherd. There are no “wild” sheep. They have no sense of direction, cannot feed themselves, have no way of protecting themselves and cannot get up if they fall over. Thus, the image of sheep portraying humans living in shadows is an ample picture indeed.

The Good Shepherd, in comparison, leads his sheep in a very different way and to a very different destination. He enters with his sheep, calls them each by name, leads them out (as opposed to driving them with a whip), goes on ahead of them to protect them from any danger, and all the while creates the perfect scenario for sheep to follow. What is the destination of all this leadership (shepherding) activity exemplified by the Good Shepherd? Where are the sheep invited to follow the shepherd to?

Pastureland.

The pastureland represents the sustenance of life, where one can eat to his/her heart’s content. It is the place representing the abundance of God’s love, provision and protection — the only place where sheep can thrive.

Pastureland, as a destination, is the antithesis of the destructive whims of the shadowland. In pastureland, one is able to embrace life as a liturgy of abundance. Shadowland, as destination, is the blind allegiance to the myth of scarcity. From the destination of pastureland, I can be fed and I can feed. I can release instead of hoard. I am free to proclaim peace as opposed to living incarcerated behind the bars of rivalry and fear.

In the conclusion to C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, there is a striking conversation ushering in the “farewell to Shadowlands.” Lewis writes,

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadowlands – dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is over: this is the morning.”

The leadership of the Good Shepherd invites us out from under the darkness of shadows and into the new morning of abundant pastureland. As his sheep, we are invited to follow; what an incredible privilege it is to encourage others to do the same.

Joel Van Dyke
Director, Urban Training Collaborative
Guatemala City

When it was evening on that day…and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear…Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you…As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven…”

John 20:19-31

The Christian story begins at the end, at the resurrection. It is by the light of the resurrection that we begin to see what’s really happening. Until then, we are shrouded in what T.S. Eliot calls “hints and guesses.” It’s only when we see through the eyes of the risen Christ that we begin to make sense of Jesus’ life and our own.

This takes time, usually a lifetime.

Perhaps this is why it took so long for the Gospels to be written. Most scholars date the earliest Gospel (Mark) around 50. A.D., and the last Gospel (John) around 100 A.D. In fact, the Gospels were written after most of Paul’s letters had begun circulating. Why the long wait for something so important? If I’ve learned anything by experience, it’s that it takes years to be formed by the reality of the resurrection so that we can re-narrate life in a way that is faithful to the reality of the Gospel.

Let’s be honest, our lives are not a simple sequence of events, one thing unfolding after another. That’s not how we make sense of our existence. We don’t narrate our lives in the order we live them-front to back. We narrate our lives in reverse-back to front. The problem arises when we don’t have a point of departure, a place of discovery, an awakening, an interpretive key that unlocks the mystery of our life.

James Alison makes a distinction between what he calls the “order of logic” and the “order of discovery.” This distinction is critical to how the spiritual life unfolds.

The order of logic is all too familiar. We begin at the beginning. We faithfully tromp through life in chronological fashion till we reach the end. When we apply the order of logic to our faith, we begin reading the Bible in Genesis and end in Revelation hoping it will all make sense. It doesn’t! To read the Bible front to back is to die a slow and painful death. I’ve tried it many times. We get to Leviticus or Numbers, and if we haven’t given up because of sheer boredom, we give up because of the bloody, gory mess. We dutifully claim the Christian story, but if we are honest, when bound by the order of logic, the story lacks coherence or life.

The order of discovery is different. It begins, not at the chronological beginning of the story, but at a point of departure-a point at which something happens that awakens us, and changes how we see. It’s from this point of departure, or what is classically called “conversion,” that we re-narrate the past, but now from a whole new perspective. It’s from this place that we make meaning. It’s from this place that our lives are re-membered. The past becomes present to us in a whole new way.

The resurrection is the Christian point of departure. That is why, if we are to read Scripture Christianly, we read it through the eyes of the resurrected Christ. If we are to live our lives Christianly, we begin here, in the resurrection.

So, here we are in the first week of the resurrection with the disciples, locked in a room, filled with fear, unable to make sense of the events that have taken place. Suddenly, there is a divine break-in-the risen Christ enters into our prison and stands among us, completely and utterly at ease and unconcerned with all the ways we’ve betrayed and denied him. Not a hint of resentment! In fact, the first word of the risen Christ is “Peace.” He says it three times in this week’s passage!

Easter Peace is the place from which we begin to make meaning. It is the place from which we can see things as they really are. Easter Peace is the ground from which we begin to discover the truth of who God is. It’s from this place that Jesus breathes on us and we discover ourselves being forgiven. To give and receive forgiveness is what it means to bear witness to the resurrection. This is how we participate in the ongoing act of creation.

Perhaps now we can see why, for most of us, it takes a lifetime to faithfully narrate the gospel story at work in our lives. I am so glad the Gospel writers waited as long as they did to put pen to paper. Imagine how differently the story would have been told if they had written too soon, only half formed by love and mercy.

T.S. Eliot said it this way, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

Kris Rocke
Executive Director
Street Psalms

^4-5 This is the full story of what was sketched earlier by the prophet:
Tell Zion’s daughter,
“Look, your king’s on his way,
poised and ready, mounted
On a donkey, on a colt,
foal of a pack animal.” 

Matthew 21:1-11

Between 1979 and 1981, twenty-nine young black people fell victim to a serial murderer in Atlanta, Georgia. I don’t know any of their names. I do have the name of JonBenét Ramsey indelibly sketched in my mind. Unlike the black children in Atlanta, JonBenét was a white American child of promise; thus, obsession with the drama surrounding her murder swept the nation in 1996. As news ratings soared, and reporters gained new levels of fame, those of us in ghettos across the nation pointed frustratingly to the contrast in the coverage of these two tragedies.

It took twenty-nine murders for the country to notice Atlanta’s missing children, while the theater surrounding JonBenét emerged immediately and was sustained for years. Shouldn’t the death of all children be treated as equally tragic and heartbreaking?

The contradictory responses drive me to the story of Isaac and Ishmael, and ultimately to our Gospel for today. Isaac was a child of promise. Ishmael was not. Abraham, Isaac’s father, seems to have given little thought to sending Ishmael and his mother into the wilderness to die. I rarely hear much drama attached to the deportation of this young man and his mother. Like the children of Atlanta and so many of today’s deportees, Ishmael’s horrors seem obscured by the drama of a child of promise.

Meanwhile, Isaac’s impending death by sacrifice has garnered much theological attention throughout history, attracting the interest of biblical voyeurs, hungry for ever-increasing intrigue. Perhaps it takes a lowly ghetto-based theology to connect the story of the banished child to that of the child of promise. I imagine that Abraham was forced to confront the question, “If you think it’s OK to let kids die, then why does it feel so bad to see your own child of promise on the alter.” Like so many today, it seems Abraham needed the dramatic spectacle of his own son, being bound and dressed as a sacrificial offering, to be shocked into consciousness about oppression, injustice, and privilege.

“The Lord is God, shining upon us. Take the sacrifice and bind it with cords on the altar.”

Psalms 118:27 (NTL)

In this week’s Gospel, we read about Jesus’ dramatic entry into Jerusalem. He comes representing the marginalized Ishmael, the children of Atlanta, and also the children of promise, akin to Isaac and JonBenét. His entry signals the truth: that injustice and iniquity certainly devour the disregarded but also sacrifice the children of promise. The makeshift path of honor and shouts of Hosanna certainly marked the Savior as a child of promise. But, his chosen chariots, a beasts of burden, surely fixed him among the most lowly esteemed, those whose horrors can’t compete with Hollywood headlines. His entry is a setup, intended to shock us into the reality that even highly favored children of promise are sacrificed at the altar of power-lust and injustice. Jesus seems to be crying out, “Take note of the praises but prepare to see what they do to your child of promise.”

There is a myth; it says that going along with oppression or maintaining a posture of silence in the face of it will somehow insulate us from the damages of injustice. The triumphant entry of the Blessed One “who comes in the name of the Lord” lays bare this myth. His celebrated procession toward the cruciform alter calls us to watch, reflect, and move to righteous action. We must, because iniquity continues its mission to devour all children, be they the forgotten ones living among the world’s trash heaps, slums, and ghettos, or those cloistered behind gated communities.

In the case of Ishmael, the problem child survives, as does Isaac, the child of promise. Jesus, on the other hand, the one who represents both children, does not. We are thus left to respond to the everyday spectacle contained within the drama of humanity; sin continues to devour forgotten problem children in ghetto streets and children of promise in addiction centers. We have much before our eyes to shock us into consciousness. May the crucified one help us to see through his eyes.

Tim Merrill
Friend of Street Psalms
Founder and Director, Watu Moja

Click to read Meal from Below: A Lenten Devotional

 
 
³⁹“I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” ⁴⁰Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” (9:39-40)

John 9:1-41

Stanley Hauwerwas said, “You can only act within the world you can see.” In this week’s text, Jesus sees what others can’t. He acts and his actions give new sight. This is the hope of the world.

The story begins with the disciples speculating theologically on who is to blame for a certain man being born blind; they are convinced God is punishing him. Jesus refuses this interpretation and heals the blind man…an act that “divides” the unstable community; he robs them of their scapegoat. Blinded by their own dim judgment, and in an effort to preserve the status quo, the community “drives out” the healed man from their midst.

Jesus follows the exile to the margins where the two of them establish the possibility of a new community, one founded upon mercy, not the blind guide of sacrifice. This is the “judgment” for which Jesus came into the world-the judgment of mercy.

There are four groups that appear in this story: the disciples, the neighbors, the parents and the Pharisees. None of them celebrate the healing of the blind man, not the disciples, not even the blind man’s parents. It’s a stunning note of absence. Instead, all are eager to distance themselves from the blind man, even in his healed state. His very presence is a threat to the community, which stands over and against “the sinner.”

To celebrate the blind man’s healing would be to jeopardize the fragile solidarity maintained by a steady stream of scapegoats. To celebrate the blind man’s healing is to side, not only with a “sinner,” but with Jesus, who himself had become known as a “sinner.” In fact, the religious power structure had already agreed, “anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue” (9:22). Lest we rush to judgment and render ourselves blind, we do well to remember what a scary and dangerous thing it is to be locked out of the only community we know by standing with those who are despised. Mercy comes at a price; we are wise to count the cost.

This story is layered with irony; all of the actors are blind to the blind man. He is invisible to them, a non-person. The only one who actually sees him is Jesus. “He saw a man blind from birth” (9:1). The man is the source of endless speculation about everything except his own healing and humanity. In fact, while the community argues about who he is, the blind man tries in vain to be noticed and get a word in edgewise. “He kept saying, ‘I am the man'” (9:9). It’s a scene straight out of a Monty Python skit. They, not the once-blind “sinner,” are oblivious to God’s active presence in their midst. As a result, once healed, he is expelled from the very community that exists for healing and wholeness.

Father Greg Boyle, author of Tattoos on the Heart, talks frequently about the “community of kinship” that Jesus makes possible. He invites us to visualize a circle of compassion and then to imagine that no one is standing outside that circle. Finally, he invites us to act…to walk to the edge of the circle and stand with those who have been demonized in order to stop the demonizing. What a beautiful way to describe what Jesus does in this text.

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will change the way we see forever and make visible that to which we are blind. Soon, we will find ourselves driven out to the extreme edge of the circle of compassion, where we will discover that the love and mercy of God widens yet again to include the excluded. This is God’s judgment of mercy; may he use the forty days of Lent to prepare our hearts for it.

Kris Rocke
Executive Director
Street Psalms

Click to read Meal from Below: A Lenten Devotional

 
 
⁴Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” ⁵he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

Matthew 17:1-9

 
Geedy was just one word in the neighborhood’s descriptive lexicon for crack cocaine addicts. Sometimes called fiends, geezers, crack heads, or traps, crack addicts once dominated American’s blighted urban landscapes, representing a black, brown, and tan urban plague long before opioid addiction became a more respectable white crisis in healthcare.
 
As for me, I stood solidly situated like Nicodemus in my understanding of how life’s laws interacted with drug addiction. I held the firm and sincere conviction that such character flaws were remedied by exposure to the gospel truth of God’s free gift of salvation, confession of sin, and turning in repentance to a new life of faith. This was my message to the neighborhood crack addicts, a solid approach to redemption-orthodoxy as exact as algebra. Then I encountered a tall, skinny geedy.
 
I never got his name and unlike the usual stream of addicts and alcoholics that normally hit me up for spare change, I’ve only seen him once, on a balmy summer South Camden afternoon as I was rounding up neighborhood kids for an adventurous outing. There, amid the organizational chaos of lining up wildly energetic preteens, he called out in a voice that spoke much more of what he could have been than what he had become, “Excuse me my brother. I don’t mean to bother you but can you spare a couple of dollars?” The uninitiated may have mistaken him for some wandering aristocrat who had fallen to an incident of bad luck. I was solidly initiated and could see his true condition from miles away, or so I thought. His request, no matter how polite, was something I had heard so often, in so many dialects, attitudes, and in every denomination.
 
The tall, skinny geedy’s request was especially annoying because this man seemed to ignore the fact that I was working in the sacred space of children, who should never be mingled in among drug infested environments. I was building tabernacles and this tall, skinny geedy was interrupting my righteous labors. Instead of reaching into my pocket and giving enough change for him to proceed on his way, I determined to lay down the law. I offered a graciously firm reply to his request for change, “Brother, more than money, what you really need is to stop using those drugs.” I guess I told him. Then God spoke.
 
While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” Matthew 17:5
 
Though we often neglect, miss, or dismiss it, the core of the incarnation is the startling, unpredictable, and serendipitously disruptive voice of God as it constantly emerges among us. Be it through Balaam’s donkey (Numbers 22:21-38), a mysterious finger writing on the wall (Daniel 5), the voice of silence that spoke to Elijah (1 Kings 19:12), or the voice from heaven in this week’s gospel reading, God’s call arises, pointing to a reality that takes us far beyond our human confidence in neatly crafted laws and conventions. The transfigured Jesus stood on the mountain, face shining and clothes gleaming, engaged in God’s eternal conversation. Peter, unnerved by serendipitous disruption, had a similar reaction to mine-to build lawful tabernacles within the realm of what we know and can control-suitable for containing any possible serendipity or divine disruption.
 
Having spoken truth to the tall, skinny geedy, I figured my task was complete. God didn’t need to speak because I already had. My disposition neglected any possibility of divine utterance; I faithfully turned my back and resumed tabernacle construction, loading kids onto the bus. The tall, skinny geedy anxiously called to me again, “Brother.”
 
I turned to see him suddenly transfigured, though in dingy grey clothes, with his espresso colored face gleaming with the sweat of a 90-degree day.
 
I’m not sure if it was a prayer, a rebuke, a sermon, or an injection into the eternal conversation but something in the words he sternly spoke to me opened my eyes to realities far beyond my neatly crafted laws and conventions. “You need to know crack calls me by my name at night,” he said with his burning eyes piercing right through me. And then he left, leaving me with the disorienting realization that my laws, conventions, and precise orthodoxy were no match for an addiction that held alluring conversations late at night.
 
His words left me imagining a world where we suspend our tabernacle building long enough to hear God graciously broadcasting assurances of his love and favor, long enough to see Christ mystically transformed into the image of the least among us-even in the person of a tall, skinny geedy, and long enough to see the power of God’s eternal conversation centered on showering gifts of abundance on captives begging for change in our streets. As the tall, skinny geedy made his way to the next possible donor, I realized that Christ once again had come to save me-that God had indeed spoken.
 
 
Tim Merrill
Friend of Street Psalms
Founder and Director, Watu Moja

Click to read Meal from Below: A Lenten Devotional

 
So why does Jesus tell his disciples to remain quiet until they meet him in the resurrection? Here’s my guess. Until we hear from the Crucified One we, like Moses, are only half-converted to the love of God. Puffed up with vision of grandeur, the disciples descend into the chaos below. Very soon, their hearts will burn hot with anger, convinced their righteous indignation is from God. This mess will have them scaling another mountain. On that mountain, they will witness original speech from God that not even Moses or Elijah fully heard. They will hear the heart of the Crucified One say to his murderers, “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing” “

Luke 23:34

 
After the brightly lit meeting on the mountain with Moses and Elijah, where Jesus is transfigured, he orders the disciples not to say a word about this until after he is raised from the dead. What an odd command. Why are they free to speak after the resurrection but not before?
 
This week’s text calls to mind Moses’ meeting with God on the mountain. Remember that? Moses ascended the mountain to speak with God. He came down with the 10 Commandments. Upon his return all hell had broken loose. There was the “noise of war in the camp” (Ex. 32:17). Chaos had gripped the community and they had turned to the golden calf. “Moses’ anger burned hot” (Ex. 32:19). In a fit of rage he then speaks rashly. Violence escalated (as it always does). He orders the execution of more than 3,000 men in God’s name. A gory frenzy of fratricide ensued that was much worse than the original sin. Yikes!
 
In the wake of the violence Moses returned to the mountain to speak to God. He fully expected to meet a God whose anger burned hotter than his own. Instead, God spoke words never uttered before, I am a “God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” (Ex. 34:6-7). Who is this God? In my view, Moses was spoken to by the Crucified One whose heart, like the stone tablets Moses had dashed, lay broken before him.
 
In his book Deep Memory and Exuberant Hope, Walter Bruggemann argues that each major failure in the life of Israel (beginning with this Exodus crisis) calls forth “original speech” from God that Israel had never heard before. In each case we hear something completely unexpected — not the anger and wrath that mirrors the human heart, but the intensification of grace and mercy that originates in the heart of God. To be sure, there are troubling regressions in the language that are attributed to God, but there is no doubt about its direction. God’s ever-increasing lexicon of grace unfolds in Scripture until it finally culminates in Jesus. Perhaps we can only hear good news a little at a time.
 
So why does Jesus tell his disciples to remain quiet until they meet him in the resurrection? Here’s my guess. Until we hear from the Crucified One we, like Moses, are only half-converted to the love of God. Puffed up with vision of grandeur, the disciples descend into the chaos below. Very soon, their hearts will soon burn hot with anger, convinced their righteous indignation is from God. This mess will have them scaling another mountain. On that mountain, they will witness original speech from God that not even Moses or Elijah fully heard. They will hear the heart of the Crucified One say to his murderers, “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Three days later in the upper room (think mountain) the heart of Jesus will speak again when he declares God’s “peace” yet again.
 
Next week we enter Lent. It is the annual journey into the resurrection by way of the cross. It can’t come soon enough. The “noise of war” is rising and golden calves abound. Bold speech is needed like never before, but like the disciples on their way to Calvary, we do well not to speak until spoken to by the Crucified One. Perhaps a Lenten vow of silence is in order.
 
I have a hunch that when the Crucified One whispers words of peace in our souls, it will be some very highly personalized version of what Jesus heard on the mountain of Transfiguration in this week’s text, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him” (Matt. 17:5). Having internalized the original speech of God and our own belovedness, we are free to shout, sing and dance our own version of original speech in a hurting world.
 
 
Kris Rocke
Executive Director
Street Psalms
 
*James Alison has a chapter with this same title in his book series called Jesus, The Forgiving Victim. I highly recommend it.
 
Click to read Meal from Below: A Lenten Devotional

²² But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.

Matthew 5:21-37

Denise stood nervously at the edge of the deep end of the Herman’s scandalous inground pool. I saw her out of the corner of my left eye, never imagining her plans. The Hermans lived amidst the towering spruce and maple trees and Victorian homes of little Collingswood, New Jersey. Denise and her 14 friends gathered at the pool lived amidst the towering crime rates and low regard of nearby Camden. This was the scandal—black, brown, tan, and yellow kids diving in a place long preserved as a sea of whiteness. The Hermans gloried in the scandal, which was certainly the talk of the town. The spectacle of this color spectrum splashing about on hot afternoons was in full view for neighbors and passing cars; less visible were the curious graces that always seemed to find their way into the Herman’s pool—graces called forth through faithful adherence to God’s commandments.

Commandments seem difficult in our age of unprecedented privilege. The very word “commandment” invokes notions of restriction, limitation, and boundaries. Surely enough, the world’s systems use commandments for such purposes, but God’s Kingdom moves in the opposite direction. God’s commandments are crafted for us to fully enjoy the immeasurably mystical and liberating gifts of grace. We hear the ensuing joys of such mysteries ringing out in the Psalmist’s voice.

Happy are those whose lives are faultless, who live according to the law of the Lord. Happy are those who follow his commands, who obey him with all their heart. Psalms 199:1-2 (Good News Translation)

The Hermans embraced the scandal of God’s commandment to extravagantly love black, brown, tan, and yellow kids from America’s most dangerous city. Though their neighborhood was known for its scarcity of grace, the act of opening a backyard pool to a group of suspect kids from a despised city affected a movement of inclusion and the emergence of abundant grace among those who dared to take a closer look.

Denise had not figured out all the stuff about commandments and grace. Lots of nouns floated above her head: Jesus, Christian, church, Baptist, Methodist, and heaven. But Denise lived in a world where verbs were much more important than nouns. At home, she was much more concerned about what the people around her did, not how they named themselves. She was bright, young, beautiful, and much too shapely for a 13-year-old. Her father was nowhere to be found and her mother’s boyfriend was an absolute lecher. Denise was the kind of girl who needed some assurances that people like the Hermans and myself took God’s commandments seriously—that our “yes” truly meant “yes” and our “no” meant “no.” Thus, after telling her “yes, we love you” and “no, we will not cast you out,” she still stood on the edge at the deep end of the pool.

God’s commandments call us to profound relationships, both with humanity and with him. This is the point of the litany of commandments Jesus gives us in our Gospel reading, taken from Matthew 5:21-37. These commandments guide us to be profoundly connected to our sisters and brothers, our friends, enemies, and spouses…and to skeptical teenage girls living in danger. Denise, having made a point to announce she could not swim, waited until my gaze was solely on her, with all the shock of seeing her at the edge of the deep end, and then she jumped. She knew if my yes was true and if I was serious about all God’s commandants I professed to follow, I would have to plunge in with all I had—eyeglasses, street clothes, wallet, watch, shoes, dollar bills and all—but only if I was serious about salvation. I’ve rarely seen such an act of faith or a more impassioned challenge to take God’s commandments seriously. So, there in the Herman’s pool the mystically abundant waters of God’s grace once again showed up as a soggy youth worker emerged from the bottom of the pool with a new believer named Denise.

Tim Merrill
Friend of Street Psalms
Founder and Director, Watu Moja

 
²“Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…'”

Mathew 5:1-12

 
We are told that the three most important words in real estate are: Location! Location! Location! I don’t think God got that memo when, as Eugene Peterson puts it, “The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood,” (John 1:14).
 
When God goes looking for a home, God does not pick the high rent district of humanity. God moves into what most of the world considered a cursed ghetto in the backwaters of the Roman Empire.
 
If the Incarnation means anything it is about the relocation of God’s blessing from “up there” to “down here.” It’s God’s Yes and Amen to this world. It is a blessing from below, in the most unexpected way-in and among that which we call cursed. This always comes as a shock to us.
 
In this week’s text, Jesus is doing a riff on the Incarnation. He is peering inside the reality of God’s Kingdom and how it works. He is teaching that God’s blessing is not where we think it is. The ones that we see as cursed turn out to be the ones on whom God’s favor rests. Is this because the poor, the mourning, the meek, and the hungry are more deserving than the rest of us? Not at all! God’s kingdom is not a meritocracy where favor is a reward for good behavior. Jesus is helping us see what has always been true though hidden. Namely, the “cursed” are not the object of God’s scorn as we thought; they are the objects of OUR scorn, which is why Jesus locates himself there and does the unimaginable. He blesses the world through that which is cursed! In a way, this is his inauguration speech that ushers in the upside-down Kingdom of God.
 
If we look into the face of the cursed one long enough we see two things. First, we see ourselves, or what Ronald Rolheiser calls our own “cursed consciousness.” A cursed consciousness is one that has internalized the curses of others and sees the world through the lens of self-hatred, bitterness and rivalry, projecting it outward. As a result, we see things, not as they are, but as we falsely see ourselves. Second, we see the face and grace of Jesus who returns us to ourselves, clothed and in our right mind. Isn’t this what happens on the Cross? The Cursed One, who is the object of our scorn (not God’s), breaks the cycle of violence with this life-affirming, world-healing blessing, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). He returns curse with blessing and in doing so returns us to ourselves. We become who we are, blessed ones.
 
Because of this, we can take the difficult and lifelong journey into our souls and those dimensions of our lives that feel cursed. We can even relocate ourselves and gladly be numbered among the transgressors. We can do this with confidence that God has pitched God’s tent there, and called it blessed and beautiful. It’s there that the Spirit transforms our “cursed consciousness” into one of delight. Only then can we bless the world. Whenever we see this happening we can be sure that the Kingdom of God is near.
 
Last week at the presidential inauguration here in the United States, rain began to fall during the ceremony. One minister saw this as a sign of God’s blessing on this administration and its “only America first” vision. In a sense, he was right. God’s blessing falls on all of us. God “sends rain to fall on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). However, given the up-side-down kingdom that Jesus makes visible in this week’s text, we also do well to remember that the “last are first and the first are last” (Matt. 20:16).
 
O Cursed One, who is our blessing, return us to ourselves with delight that we might do the same for all the cursed ones who have long since forgotten their blessedness.
 
 
Kris Rocke
Executive Director
Street Psalms

 
⁴²“He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).”

John 1:29 – 42

 
I ask people, especially young people, about their names. I fill up with joy when Maisha tells me her name is Swahili for “life,” or when Cinqué explains how his parents named him for the freedom fighter who liberated fellow Africans during a rebellion aboard the slave ship Amistad. These names reflect parents that apply thoughtfulness and destiny as a gift to their children. The Prophet Isaiah boasts of God’s investment of destiny and thoughtfulness to all the listening world.
 
Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The LORD called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. Isaiah 49:1-7
 
Like Cinqué and Maisha’s parents, God is seen here giving serious forethought concerning Isaiah’s naming and its connection to his calling. This is wonderful news for those with thoughtful parents. Perhaps the Apostle Peter did not have the advantage of such a visionary father or mother. In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, we witness this odd encounter:
 
One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter). John 1:40-42
 
 
Not much talking here, only a deep gaze into Simon’s eyes and the pronouncement of a new name. The text doesn’t even give Simon Peter a chance to respond. Across the centuries, there has been intense conversation about the meaning of this story. Jesus’ conversion of Simon’s name from “one who hears” to “rock” is truly mystical. And, like Peter, we are left to sit with the mystery. Rather than focusing on the “meaning” of the name change, I am much more intrigued by the mystery of God’s eternal stare and imagination on behalf of this young, confused soul.
 
It’s significant that this odd encounter takes place shortly after the baptism of Jesus. Some historians argue that Jesus received his divine nature during his immersion in the Jordan, as the heavenly dove descended upon him. Others, myself among them, believe he was born into divinity and that his baptism and the symbol of God’s anointing presence, the dove, was for us to see. It’s a reminder that as we join him in baptism we also join the fellowship of his gracious, divine anointing-his journey to the cross, his suffering, his resurrection, and his way of seeing.
 
When we join in Christ’s baptism, God’s spirit moves upon us. It creates an unavoidable compulsion to gaze deeply into suffering souls. God’s grace, the gift that uses us, grants us the privilege of seeing others through Christ’s eyes and sharing his bespoke vision for their lives: They are loved deeply; they are valued immensely; and they are called to a life of abundant grace. For those blinded by neglect, pain, and various forms of abuse, this is certainly good news! It works for the other kids in my community, the ones named after perfumes, Luxury Japanese cars, and alcoholic beverages. God is able to redeem their names, or sometimes even rename them, based on how he sees them and their calling. And for Peter, after being sifted, sorted, and subdued, a new name, thoughtfully conceived, and with destiny in mind, seems to have had quite the effect.
 
I pray you are blessed to hear God’s name, his calling, for you, and to share that blessing with all around. The world can always use a few more people who see through the eyes of Christ’s abundance. It can always use a few more “divinely inspired name-callers.”
 
 
Tim Merrill
Friend of Street Psalms
Founder and Director, Watu Moja

²⁷Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, ²⁸Simeon took him in his arms and praised God…

Luke 2:25-35

 
We’ve had a week to digest the Nativity Feast. The magic of Christmas finds its way into even the most resistant of souls because it comes so unobtrusively and with such openness, vulnerability, and without the slightest demand. Our souls leap almost involuntarily in the presence of the Incarnation. In it, we see our true selves mirrored in the true One who comes to greet us with complete delight.
 
One Christmas text (Year C) tells of Simeon in the temple. With Simeon, our souls leap for joy as we hold Jesus in our hands. To hold the One who holds us is the mystery of this day. It is no accident that Simeon is in the temple, which is the sacred center of his people. It is the place where God is worshipped, infusing life with new meaning, but it is also the place that represents all the ways we use God to sanctify our deceptions.
 
In holding salvation, Simeon rejoices and realizes he is now free to depart. When we find ourselves in the presence of God, life as we know it, with all our striving, is no longer necessary. While some of us strive by grasping for what we cannot obtain, others strive by withholding what we fear to lose. It is the same thing. In Christ, we are not only free to live, but also free to die. This is what Simeon teaches us.
 
Persuaded by unbounded goodness, Simeon then turns to Joseph and Mary and helps them understand that the gift he holds in his hands will cause the rise and fall of many-and will even pierce their own souls. Salvation is free, but it is never easy to accept, especially for a fearful humanity clinging to its own wounds. There is no salvation without the piercing. What is being pierced is not the true essence of who we are-God has nothing but blessing for the true self. One way to understand what Simeon called “piercing” is to recognize what happens when Jesus begins to touch the wounds that have come to define us in such deceptive and destructive ways. These wounds go deep and are usually formed at such an early age that we hardly recognize them, or we’ve organized our lives to protect them and avoid them. They rule us at deep levels.
 
Jesus comes to free us from our habitual, addictive, over-identification with our own wounds-whether real or imagined. Such freedom first feels like a piercing and it scares the hell out of us. How else are we to explain the “rising and falling”?
 
Allow me (Kris writing here) to speak a bit more personally to make the point. As the youngest of four kids, one of my great wounds is the wound of powerlessness or at least the perception of being powerless. My perceived inability to affect change and get what I want has created an overinflated impulse to force, manipulate or cajole my way into getting what I fear I would not get otherwise. These behaviors are ruled by fears that lay beneath the surface of my consciousness. They are habitual. I am Jacob in this regard. He is my patron saint. The “piercing” is the awakening of this wound in ways that help me recognize how I have let this wound run my life. More often than not, there is the feeling of absolute terror at the thought of giving up my well-crafted strategies to protect the wound. Who will protect me if I don’t? When Jesus touches this wound in me, and gently but firmly calls me to live free of the wound, it feels very much like a piercing-perhaps worse, a crucifixion.
 
Like Kris (Scott speaking here), my family experience shaped my own experience of woundedness. As the oldest of ten children, I developed a powerful sense of responsibility, or at least perceived responsibility, that persists to this day. I didn’t get into much trouble, and when I did, I worked almost frantically to justify my actions. More often, I tried to keep others out of trouble or harm. One ordinary night at home as a boy, I happened to hear my sister in the next bedroom gasping. She was suffering a major seizure, and stopped breathing. She was okay in the end, but the cause was unclear. For months and even years, I awakened each night and sat in the hallway, listening for anything unusual about my sister’s breathing as she slept. Much later as a young man, I moved overseas to work among the poorest of the poor in an Asian slum. Amid the shacks in the squalor of open sewers, mothers would bring me their dying babies and beg me to save them. I was overwhelmed, aghast and grief-stricken that I could not. I began to unravel, crushed by the hopelessness I had given my life to alleviate.
 
But Jesus comes to remind us that we are not our wounds! This is our salvation. Yes, our wounds may shape us and, yes, we may have come up with perfectly reasonable strategies in our life to survive them, but we are not our wounds and we do not have to live lives that are run by them. This dynamic is true at a personal level, and even within communities and nations. We are free in Christ.
 
Modified Excerpt from “Meal from Below: A Five Course Feast with Jesus”
by Kris Rocke and Scott Dewey
Copyright © 2012 by Street Psalms Press. All rights reserved

 
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”
John 1:14
 
We began this year’s Advent series by exploring The Waiting Rooms of Christmas. We waited in the Apocalypse and peace found us. We waited in the Wilderness and a garden of grace grew in our midst. We waited in Prison and we discovered ourselves set free. Finally, we waited with Mary in the shameful spotlight of Public Disgrace, which calls forth the most precious gift of all-Emmanuel, God with us, who transforms the waiting room, the waiter, and even the waiting itself by God’s very presence.
 
The Incarnation of the Word is indeed a revelation, a dawning of light “for those walking in darkness” (i.e. In the Waiting Rooms of Christmas) (Isaiah 9:2). But what is being revealed, and what has arrived? Certainly not the invention of some new reality-as if God has been absent among us and now has shown up. The Incarnation is not so much about the relocation of God as it is about the relocation of humanity’s understanding of God. The Incarnation is calling us to something that was always there but we couldn’t see.
 
The unimaginable mystery of the Incarnation is that God is not the foreigner that we thought he was. “God is at home,” Meister Eckhart said. “We are in the far country.” As it turns out, God is quite at home here and always has been. We are the strangers in our own land. The One we thought was the Great Outsider turns out to be the Ultimate Insider. It is we who live on the outside of our own existence, not God. The Incarnation invites us to make the journey home within our home.
 
In a story recounted in the book of 2 Samuel, God’s Word comes to King David through the prophet Nathan. God corrects David’s misguided assumption that it is David’s job to build God a house. “Are you the one to build me a house to live in?” (2 Sam. 7:5). God is trying to help David understand that God is at home in this world in a way that cannot be housed by David’s efforts. God lives a free, dynamic, unending, and ever new existence that cannot be housed in anything other than the home of authentic relationship. God goes on to say that if anyone needs a house, it’s not God. Instead, it’s Israel who needs a house and God offers to build it himself: “The LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house” (2 Sam. 7:11).
 
Similarly, in Scripture’s final vision of reality, we are reminded again of the great reversal of the Incarnation: “See the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3). This is the mystery of the Incarnation. In Christ, heaven has always been coming to earth. In Christ, God has always dwelt among us as one who is perfectly suited to the land that we find so strange. The place that so much other-worldly religion tempts us to forsake as foreign is the very place that God occupies as home-so that we can too.
 
 
Modified Excerpt from “Meal from Below: A Five Course Feast with Jesus”
by Kris Rocke and Scott Dewey
Copyright © 2012 by Street Psalms Press. All rights reserved