Being Weak (2 Cor. 12:2-10)

As long as we think that what we have, who we are, and what we’ve endured depend solely upon our initiative and the strength of our own determination and courage, we wind up flailing about, convinced we can do God’s work better than God.

Whenever we start thinking it’s about us, we lose the ability to offer ourselves to the world as a fragrant offering of love and sacrifice.

It’s not until we let go of the idea that something native to our own virtue is what allows us to become the people God wants us to be that we’ll ever be able to taste the life God has in store for us.

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Finding Hope in the Midst of Failure (Mark 6:1-13)

But in the face of failure, Jesus isn’t waiting around. He’s already headed out to the villages to continue doing what God sent him to do. And he’s not content to do it alone. He sends his followers back out into what must have felt like a hostile world to continue the work they’d already been rejected for.

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If It Sounds Too Good to Be True... (Mark 5:21-43)

In the face of a scoffing world, Jesus demonstrates his faith in God’s willingness to snatch life from the jaws of death by ... acting faithfully. Jesus sees the woman and the young girl through the eyes of God and God’s idea of who’s valuable and who’s worth taking a chance on. In the woman who’s been dead in so many crucial ways for twelve years and in the twelve-year-old girl who’s also now dead, God sees the possibilities no one else can see.

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The Economy of God (1 Samuel 15:34-16:13)

In the economy of God, the new creation holds a special place for the powerless, the stepped-on, and the least likely candidates to be social media influencers. In a strange and seemingly indefensible administrative move, God throws out the HR manual and starts employing the ones who show up to the interview in flip-flops and shorts.

And it’s almost never flashy, but it can leave ripples in the pond that seem to go on forever.

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The Courage to Be Disliked (Mark 3:20-35)

Christianity, for too many people today, means “saving souls for Jesus” while often despising those same souls until they have the decency and good sense to become more like you.

But start living like Jesus—challenging the systems that keep only a handful fat and happy, hanging out with people who’ve been forced to live in the shadows to avoid being trampled by the religious folks who otherwise have contempt for them—and the wrath of the self-righteous will fall on you like Bull Connor’s billy club.

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For the Common Good (1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

The body of Christ is principally concerned with embodying the kind of just community that announces the reign of God to a world that needs a great cosmic cleanup of the mess humans have made of things.

Now, if I get blessed in the process—then that’s wonderful. And as difficult as that is for me personally to swallow, the church isn’t just here to bless me; I’m here to bless the world by participating in the beloved community and adding my gifts to the mix … for the common good.

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Protesting in Public (Mark 2:23-3:6)

Because if we take seriously the public testimony of the marginalized and the vulnerable, we have to come to terms with the fact that we’ve participated in systems that, by their very nature, protect the interests of the powerful at the expense of the powerless. In other words, we’re not just innocent bystanders to all this agitation; in some way, we’re part of the reason these protests are necessary.

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When Knowing Isn’t Enough (Acts 1:1-11)

True knowledge of God is always proportional to our willingness to live faithfully as witnesses of God’s faithfulness to us.

True belief is never an end in itself. We concern ourselves with believing the right things not so we can have the satisfaction of being right but so that our actions will be rightly directed.

Actually living what we know and what we say we believe is the real point.

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The Wind Again Blows

God comes to us and says, 'There are some folks who need my love and compassion. I want you to go to them. I want you to love them for me.'

'Which folks?'

'All my children. You know who I’m talking about, the ones no respectable church wants. The ones who’ve been systematically told they’re not welcome. The ones who don’t have anybody to speak up for them. Don’t talk right. Don’t dress right. Don’t have the right kind of money. Don’t live in the right part of town. Don’t love the right person. Don’t have the right skin color. I want you to go to them.'

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The Hardest Question (Mark 16:1-8)

Three women went to the tomb, expecting the cemetery to be the last word.

But it wasn’t. Jesus was gone. They were afraid.

I have no doubt that, eventually, that fear was turned to joy. But before they felt joy, they were afraid. They knew that something cosmic was at stake.

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Not Quite Getting It (Mark 11:1-11)

So, when Jesus arrived on the scene, Palestine was desperate for another messiah, a hero, someone to rally the oppressed locals to finally kick the Roman interlopers out of Palestine. They needed, in short, a messiah acquainted with the business end of a sword.

I suspect you can imagine that when Jesus starts talking about humiliation and death as his vision of messiahship, how it is that so many people completely fail to hear him. They didn’t quite get it.

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That's the Bargain (John 12:20-36)

Jesus says, “Here’s what my glory looks like: Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever wants to catch on with my band of merry souls can look forward to the same kind of ‘glory’ with which I’m about to be ‘glorified.’”

And you can hear the wheels spinning in the Greeks’ minds: “What kind of glory is he talking about? Seeds falling to earth and dying? What does that mean? We know what glory looks like, and frankly, it doesn’t look like dead seeds. So, what’s he talking about?”

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God's Scandalous Mercy (John 3:14-21)

Have you noticed how many people think the table is too big—that we’ve got no business telling everybody they’re welcome?

They say, “Well, of course, everyone’s welcome ... just as soon as they get their beliefs straightened out”—which, translated, generally means: “just as soon as they promise to believe all the things we believe, to hate all the things we hate, and to exclude all the people we exclude.”

I’m not quite sure how to put this, but no matter how systematic your theology is, that’s not Jesus. And this is what I think Jesus is getting at when he starts talking about those who hate the light, who love darkness because their deeds are evil.

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Signs of Disruption (John 2:13-22)

Many people believe that God is to be found at the “temple.” So, they spend a great deal of time trying to figure out how to help people find their way through the doors that they’ve been told for so long is the place where they can meet God.

But since so many people don’t believe religion has much impact on their lives, it’s hard to justify taking prime time out of a weekend to go to church. For people struggling to live faithfully, perhaps the focus should be on where God is moving outside the church's walls, away from the giant stable system that seems so comfortable and inevitable.

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Bearing Crosses? (Mark 8:31-38)

Wayward children. Problem spouses. Overbearing parents. Demanding bosses. Arthritis. The heartbreak of Psoriasis. Male-pattern baldness. All of these and more serious things that bring suffering are commonly referred to as “crosses to bear.”

But that’s not right, is it? Jesus isn’t talking about the cross-as-symbol-of-just-any-garden-variety suffering. He’s talking about the death-dealing power of the state to impose its will on anyone with enough courage or enough gullibility to question it.

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It Is Good for Us to Be Here (Mark 9:2-9)

With the uncertainty Jesus has just laid out for them about picking up their crosses and dying as enemies of the state, Peter sees the ancient Near Eastern version of the Justice League all wearing their technicolor dream coats, and he says, “You know, all things considered, this seems like a swell place to be. Why don’t we pitch a few tents and stay right here?

I totally get why the disciples would rather just watch Jeopardy than head down that mountain into an untenable political environment that would soon cost Jesus everything.

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What If It's Bigger Than Us? (Mark 1:29-39)

But if Jesus’ mission is about healing, about re-establishing the dignity and purpose of others, of helping them to find a place that’s safe and affirming—then, perhaps, we who are his followers ought to follow suit.

Perhaps we should be less concerned with doing what everyone else thinks churches ought to do and worry more about doing what Jesus calls us to do—to make a place in the world for those who have no place.

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As One with Authority (Mark 1:21-28)

Why? Because Jesus speaks as one with authority—a new kind of authority; he speaks the truth … always.

Jesus is, according to this definition, a faithful jihadist who squares off against the powers that preserve injustice by privileging certain classes of "worthy" people, giving them access—while excluding the powerless and the disadvantaged.

And we who are trying to follow him don't get to excuse ourselves from the messiness. We don't get to stand by silently while some folks get kicked to the back of the bus, or dragged kicking and screaming back across the border, or singled out for the bathrooms they use. We have our own tyrants before whom we need to speak.

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I'm Sorry, When? (Mark 1:14-20)

Maybe God’s trying to tell you something at this very moment. Maybe there’s not some big PowerPoint pitch to lay out all the pros and cons, not some incentivized benefits package, not some assurance that everything’s going to turn out right, and you’ll become famous, have wonderful, well-adjusted kids, and escape the ravages of arthritis.

Maybe it’s just a tug, a gnawing at the edge of your mind that you can’t quite shake, saying, “Follow me. Drop what you’re doing, and follow. Immediately.”

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Emperors and Their New Clothes (Matthew 2:1-12)

Herod resides in regal luxury in the thriving metropolis of Jerusalem; Jesus begins his life relying on the generosity of visitors in a modest dwelling in Bethlehem. Herod has access to the most influential leader of the time; Jesus, a mere infant, doesn’t even have access to the local Red Roof Inn.

Yet, what’s truly captivating in this narrative is the fact that Herod, embodying power and affluence, is deeply terrified of Jesus—a seemingly insignificant child from an obscure backwater. Despite all his wealth and security, Herod wakes up the day after the Magi’s departure, tasting only the bitter tang of fear and feeling a weight of dread in his gut.

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