It started with a question. “When is the kingdom of God coming?” When will God make things right? Because we’re not ok. We’ve been oppressed for centuries, conquered by other nations. When is the kingdom of God coming? That was the question. And Jesus gave two answers: The kingdom of God is among you. It’s within you. It’s here, now! But then he says. “The days are coming when the kingdom of God will be revealed” Two answers to the same question. It’s here, now. It’s not here, not yet. There is a tension between the now and the not yet. A gap. A space. Then Jesus drops this parable right into the middle of this tension: “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor
What if some big pharmaceutical company developed a medication that taken daily would enable you to sleep better and have more energy within three weeks? What if that same drug would reduce your risk of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders? What if it would help you to better manage stress, reduce your risk of substance abuse, boost your immune system and increase your overall health? And what if it would also increase your usual level of happiness by 25% and increase your overall vitality and life-satisfaction? Best of all, what if this little pill had absolutely no negative side effects and was available free of charge? I think we would call that a wonder drug wouldn’t we? And I’
One of the things I love about the English language is that our words are so flexible. You know what I mean? You can take a word and use it as a noun, as a verb, as an adjective and sometimes even an adverb. I love my work, I work hard, these are my work clothes. But there is one big exception in the English language, and that is the word “faith”. We’re allowed to use it as a noun, we can say “increase my faith” but we never get to use it as a verb. And that is a real problem for our faith. Because if we could use the word “faith” as a verb, we could say things like “I faith you”. And wouldn’t that make faith sound much more active, and much more relational. In fact if we could use fai
Did you hear the alarm go off? This is a wake-up call. Will you do something about it before it’s too late? In today’s gospel, Jesus tells a parable about the afterlife, about a poor man and a rich man who die, one taken to be with Abraham and one who goes to Hades. It’s tempting to use this as an excuse to speculate about heaven and hell - but if we do, we will miss both the point and the urgency of the parable. Sometimes I tell a story I heard once about the census in heaven. One day the auditors arrived in heaven to do a census. They were greeted by St. Peter at the pearly gates of heaven and were invited in to count the number of people there. It took them a long time, but eventual