A time to simply be...

“But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42

 The gospels record that when Jesus went to the home of Mary and Martha, the two women handled the visitation in drastically different ways. Martha went about the business of fiercely preparing for her visit from Jesus-- making sure everything in her home was placed just right, and working tirelessly to prepare the perfect meal. Martha, however, waited patiently for Jesus’s arrival, and when he did arrive, she sat quietly with him to hear whatever wisdom he might desire to share.

I have wondered if perhaps Martha had watched Jesus do things (work miracles, teach, debate religious officials) for so long, that she erroneously assumed the best way to welcome the reign of God would be to embroil herself in the practice of doing. Meanwhile, Martha somehow knew that the best way welcome the reign of God would be to still herself, quiet her heart and listen to the wisdom of the sage.

This week, I wondered to myself:

What would my life become 

if I subordinated the business of doing 

to the wisdom of being? 

What is the best way 

to escape the practice of doing 

and hear the wisdom of the sages?

For Christians Who Want to Kill the Uprising

Very early in the morning the leading priests and the elders of the people met again to lay plans for putting Jesus to death. Then they bound him, led him away, and took him to Pilate, the Roman governor. – Matthew 27:1-2, NLT

Mainstream evangelical Christianity’s most common reading of the crucifixion story holds that Jesus had to die because the world’s sin could not be forgiven unless God received the ultimate sacrifice: the blood of God himself on a public altar at Calvary. This perspective ignores the political implications of history’s most famous death. When accepting wholesale that the death of Jesus was primarily staged to serve a cosmic need, we ignore the nefarious human plot that had been laid out against Him. A more balanced reading, however, reveals that Jesus did not simply die because God needed Him to die "for our sins"—but rather, that Jesus was marked for death because religious and political leaders who opposed the uprising of a movement needed the uprising to die.

Why "All Lives Matter" Is Terribly Problematic

This video was shared by one of my facebook friends and I wish I could share it everywhere, at least a thousand times. There are a lot of "All Lives Matter" announcements from friends on social media-- all written in response to the Dallas Police Shootings. I get it: We all want to grab on to a slogan or some common theme that will help us to feel that we are standing together in this time of tragedy.