Worth Doing Badly

“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke10:41b-42. Mary’s choice of “the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” is choosing the eternal in time. The repetition of the existential choice of the immortal will always be conflicted because, as body, we defaul...

But [the lawyer], desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” Luke 10:29. The lawyer represents all the self-acclaimed critical thinkers whose criticism is directed outward rather than the self-criticism of repentance that is made possible by God’s promise of forgiveness. Forgiveness amps up the self-criticism of repentance rather than making it unnecessary.

“Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Luke 10:20. The joy of salvation is not outside subjugation but that the Lamb of God has effectively “taken away” the sin of the single individual whose name is “written in heaven.”

Foxes and birds naturally have natural habitats. Jesus had no home because any earthly place would be too inadequate and impermanent to be called “home” for beings on the path of life leading to delights that are forever.

We want a salvation that tweaks, not one that transforms. Conversion begins with restoration of the self, which sin always intends to destroy.

Time and death are transformed because the Holy Trinity is love. If God was one person, love would be self-love. But God is Triune, which means that true love has always been about love for the other and so essentially sacrificial.

Pentecost fulfils and completes the promise of Shavuot by moving the external law into the depths of the heart. To be chosen is expressed in making what seems like hard choices unless they are the choices that God makes for his beloved.

Christ’s ascension completes the teleological path of descent/incarnation/death/resurrection which opened the way of our ascent.

Do you want to be healed? Salvation s not for the healthy and whole but for those who know healing as an unrequited desire.

Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would reveal unbearable truths. The unbearable truth to be revealed over time is that all suffering is akin to the travail of childbirth, that pain is not a sign of death but of life. This unbearably beautiful truth is that what we wish to be true, is the truth.

There is no distance between Jesus’ words and works as Good Shepherd and God. God’s whole goodness is in His incarnate Good Shepherd.

Christ’s kingdom does not change after His resurrection. Despite their failures, He is going to use the same people He began His ministry with to speak His peace and forgiveness.

"Life in his name" is not any life, or the life we choose but the life sanctioned by Jesus’ incarnate life.

Jesus’ resurrection means that everything has changed because mortality was swallowed up by immortality. From now on Christian life aims at increasing confidence in the new conditions of mortal existence by following Christ’s well-detailed path to and beyond cross.

The glory of Jesus’ suffering and death is the glory of “being lifted up from the earth” so that all people are drawn to Him. Those who desire the human glory that drives and forces others will not see the glory and beauty of the One who rules by drawing free people to freely follow Him.

Salvation is analogous to restored fortunes. Restoration presumes loss of a previous condition that was not defined by death. Being mortal means our life is defined by loss. But in Christ we are not losers. On the contrary, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

Repentance gives us the liberty of the lost (prodigal) son to "come back to himself" and that is cause for joyful celebration rather than moral condemnation.

In Lent we contemplate our mortality, what it means to be defined as mortal and what it means for mortals to have hope of life in Christ.

Jesus’ goodness generated threats from Herod and Jesus dismissed Herod "the great" by calling him by a diminutive "fox". Of course, a fox can cause considerable chaos in the hen house, except, this time the hen was Jesus, there to protect his chicks, even when they refused his care. Nonetheless, Jesus continued his loving work of giving life to a life–starved world.

Not everything called salvation is salvation. True salvation is by the work of the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world and which is characterized as deprivation and temptation. A false salvation exploits deprivations to supply empty satisfactions.

The Transfiguration of Jesus gives us a glimpse of the New Creation when mankind in Christ will be brought face-to-face with the glory of God.

God-like-ness is the alternative to lifeless self-absorption.

Jesus’ beatitudes help us see beyond the present moment to our future reality, that God’s judgement really is in our favour.

Humility is not a moral thing we decide to do or be; it is what happens when we recognize the fullness of our fallen reality and the greatness of God. God’s compelling and attractive nature, which draws us toward Him rather than drive us away, requires working through our natural, sinful inclination to distance ourselves from Him.

Jesus’ authority and power are signalled by miracles which point beyond visible manifestations to the fullness of life to come.