Posts Tagged ‘Worthiness’
A Place to Stand – Br. Lain Wilson
When was the last time you walked into the ocean? Or sat on the sand with the surf washing up over you? Do you remember the force of the tide, the effort needed to maintain your footing or seat, to counter the push and pull of the current against your body so that you could remain planted in the sand, firm, upright? Do you remember saying to yourself, “Okay, now, I’ve got it,” just before a wave hit you and knocked you over?
Jesus’s listeners in today’s Gospel are trying to find their footing, to find a place to stand upright. “You will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he” (Jn 8:24). His listeners are desperate, pressing Jesus for details – so desperate that, even though they don’t understand what he is saying to them, nevertheless, “many believed in him” (Jn 8:30). But the current of Jesus’s truth will be too strong for them; by the end of this chapter, these same people who believed will try to stone Jesus (Jn 8:59). Their belief is without a firm foundation, unable to brace them against the next wave. Read More
God does not call the worthy – Br. Sean Glenn
Br. Sean Glenn
As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”[1]
This morning, we encounter a scene that ought to leave us filled with an awesome wonder. Here, Jesus empowers his followers to be his ensigns—literally, those who en-sign the presence of the Father’s kingdom in the world. And the way they do so is itself a kind of sign, a sign of the character of God. For as they proclaim the nearness of the kingdom, they do not do so with the coercive might of earthly empire or exploitive trappings of worldly rulers.
“Cure the sick,” Jesus says, “raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” The sign of the kingdom of heaven is this unitive, healing, gathering action of raising, cleansing, and casting out. It is a mark of a Spirit that is boundlessly generous. “You received without payment;” continues Jesus, “give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.”[2] Not only does the nearness of the kingdom of heaven become en-signed on the world by a generosity, but it is a generosity sourced in creaturely poverty, without gold or silver, no containers of excess or tools of defense. Instead, these human beings sent by Jesus are to embody the true Humanity he has come to enflesh: a humanity empty enough to receive the boundless love and light of the Father. Read More