Posts Tagged ‘Mark 9:30–37’
Welcome Child – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
What were you arguing about? Jesus asked. Perhaps best scout for new outreach and lodging sites. Expert at crowd control. Food and goods purveyor. Scripture knowledge. Who is Jesus’ favorite. The greatest disciple.
Playful jostling can turn to comparing power and privilege, background, connection, and status. We wrestle and worry over: what am I worth? Am I enough? What do I have? What if Jesus asked you and me: What were you so anxious about?
Jesus said: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Servants were last, and the servant of all was the servant at the bottom with the least. This upends us seeking power, access, security, and more than we need.
Jesus “took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms, and [Jesus] said to them ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’” Like servants, children had no status or power. Let go of ego. Don’t cling to gifts, abilities, or background. Read More
Our Moral Finitude – Br. Keith Nelson
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Br. Keith Nelson
I want to crack these scripture passages open by sharing some things I’ve gleaned lately about ethics from a rather unlikely pair: a wildly popular content creator on TikTok and an early eighteenth century Quaker. Bear with me!
Alexis Nicole Nelson is a foraging expert and an advocate for growing and eating local food based in Columbus, Ohio. She creates irresistibly funny videos, and her sense of wonder for the earth is contagious. But Nelson, who is a Black woman and a vegan, also offers powerful insights about the complex relationship between our food choices, our privilege or lack of privilege, and the ethical conundrums we all face as consumers in an industrial society. As she points out, the adoption of moral self-righteousness around what we choose to eat or not eat is woefully misguided because when it comes to balancing harm of other humans, harm to animals, and harm to the environment, no food choice is ethically perfect. And yet, Nelson continues to passionately educate others about harm reduction in relation to food-ways, because while perfection is impossible, doing better is attainable. We can continue to improve our own choices and build a lower-impact food culture while remaining humble and empathetic. Read More
Jesus and Children – Br. Curtis Almquist
Mark 9:30-37
[Jesus and the disciples] passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Read More