Touchpoints on Mark (Page 2)
Devils and French Fries
“The evil is real, but I do not understand it. However, since I shook off the idea that I must wage a war against it, I have not encountered it. It has no life-giving breath, but only a stink in the air. Maybe a good candle and a centering prayer will help create an emotional receptivity to God as king rather than a panic-driven election of a false god.”
Catch and Release
“Satan is called the Prince of the Air. Of the air! What a joke! Evil and all its negativity does not have power except that which is given. It demands a response and receptivity to give it breath. Until then, it is just air. Spirit is breath. The breath we breathe. Evil has lost an eternal battle and simply annoys us in its desperate, vulnerable state.”
Let’s Get Tattoos!
“At baptism it is not about our declaration of acceptance of God, it’s about our full acknowledgment of God’s reception of us! This mystery invites us into God’s heart. This mystery is the heartbeat in all people, whether aware of it or not. Though we may sin, doubt, judge, curse, deny, betray, we cannot remove the tattoo placed on our hearts as a reminder that we belong.”
Jesus at the Waffle House
“I don’t believe that God works in mysterious ways. I believe, our mysterious God works in familiar ways; we just need to open our eyes. That’s what it means to experience the second coming of Christ. For me, it is to be able to see Christ in others. Christ in this moment, where matter and spiritual connect. For me, it’s not what we believe about the future that matters, it’s how we experience the Second Coming of Christ breaking through.”
Happy Birthday!
“You see, creation never stops. Life and death and birth are a continuous reality in our lives and the life of the world. Life is a gift, not a possession, and it’s given daily.”
Recognizing Jesus, Recognizing Bartimaeus
“And now I recognize that I am the blind beggar, or the blind beggar is me, just in a different condition. And the command to love my neighbor AS myself isn’t theoretical anymore.”
Being Next to Jesus!?!
“But the radical nature of Jesus death and resurrection is that he turns all this on its head, upside down. For Jesus, his death and resurrection don’t bring us to a new point of security, where we can SIT with Jesus, but a new point of servant-hood where we JOURNEY with him back into the world.”
With God, All Things are Possible
“Deprivation is not the point of this passage. Neither is it the point of the kingdom. The point of the kingdom is in the caring and the sharing of all that we are and all that we have. The point is to live in the reality that all is a gift…and NOTHING is a possession. Or should I say, NOTHING is the only possession.”
God is a Divorcée
“You see, for Jesus, life isn’t about being right or wrong. It’s about relationships. The greatest commandment isn’t, ‘Be right with all your heart soul and mind.’ No, it’s ‘Love with all your heart soul and mind.'”
Jesus Forbids Forbidding
“Jesus takes on the ultimate exclusions, murder and death. And transforms them into resurrection and life. You see, even exclusion gets taken up into the Mystery and is transformed into healing and wholeness. Jesus forbids forbidding by transforming it, not excluding it.”
Jesus is JUST KID-ing
“While your relationship with Jesus may be personal, it is not private and neither is your salvation, your healing, or your wholeness. Which, by the way is what the word ‘salvation’ means. It means ‘healing,’ ‘wholeness,’ ‘completeness.’ And none of that can you accomplish alone…in private…personally.”
Please Answer the Question. And Show Your Work.
“We have to let the actions of Jesus, the actions of the Christ, define the Christ. We can’t let our theologies and belief systems determine who God is. God is much bigger than that. It isn’t Law/Gospel. It’s Gospel/Law/Gospel.”