Being Christian – SSJE

We do not need to have it all perfectly figured out to begin. Br. Jamie Nelson reflects on the early church to show that Christian growth happens through relationships, learning, and mutual support. It reminds us that faith doesn't require having everything figured out from the start — only openness to keep growing.

The day of quiet, polite, discrete evangelism is over. Our gospel, the gospel of Jesus’ love, needs to be shouted louder than the gospel of vengeance. Using the two-tradition story of St. Stephen's martyrdom, Br. James Koester challenges Christians to move beyond "polite" faith and loudly proclaim a gospel of love and reconciliation in a world increasingly filled with messages of vengeance.

George invites us to pledge our allegiance and loyalty to God and the gospel of hope, peace, and love that Jesus proclaims, and to reject those claims on them made by those promoting despair, war, and hate. Br. Lain Wilson looks to the soldier-saint George as an invitation to wrestle with what may make us feel uncomfortable.

The great challenge we have as Christians is how to maintain an even keel. How do we keep our heads while the world around us goes crazy? We may not know how we're going to react in our encounter with God, but, as Br. Jack Crowley reminds us, we will answer that question in the thousands of little ways we live our lives each day.

We carry around pieces of ourselves that we may label as our failures or, at the very least, no longer relevant to the people we’ve become. But God finds a way to make use of those leftovers. Br. Jamie Nelson encourages us to look at the pieces of our lives as leftovers to be gathered up and offered to God, and to others.

On Palm Sunday, there is one word we repeat again and again: the Aramaic word “Hosanna.” “Hosanna” means to “save us” and to “help us”: the very thing that Jesus promises us, and which we most need: to be saved and helped. Br. Curtis Almquist looks to Palm Sunday as both a call to discipleship and a reminder that Jesus is with us always, and we need not be afraid.

This is the good news of the gospel, that we are all precious in the sight of God who loves us, not in a general way, but in a particular way; in the way that Jesus loved Lazarus. Br. James Koester encourages us to respond to the culture of hate and death that surrounds us, beginning with the recognition that we are precious in God's sight.

Forgiveness is essential to our spiritual well-being; it is the necessary outcome of loving one another as God has loved us. In this powerful reflection, Br. David Vryhof reminds us that even when forgiveness isn't easy, it is necessary.

Each day’s cross carries its own little splinters, its own knots in the wood, and it can rub us the wrong way on different days. Br. Jack Crowley invites us to remember that we don't bear our cross each day for no reason; we bear it to follow Jesus.