Power has been the gift. Buildings have been the gift. Money and influence have been the gift. The people, however, were largely irrelevant, except maybe as cogs to ensure the system continued to perpetuate itself.

A shortened list of the Ten Commandments like this appears only four places in the New Testament, three of those being Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s accounts of Jesus talking with the Rich Young Ruler. For us, everything looks pretty much the same across all four, but behind the scenes are some significant differences.

One detail I find interesting here is that this scene takes place immediately before the Transfiguration, a feast the Church observes on Thursday of this week. Set within the context of Roman adoption, that suggests this recognition of and emphasis upon self-loss or self-denial is the final lesson the Father has set within the Son’s training period.

So one of Paul’s answers to our question of purpose is to present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice. But what does that even mean? Is this some sort of cult thing where we all commit mass suicide as a way to enter some sort of greater mystical reality? Is this supposed to be me laying myself before God, accepting a miserable or austere existence in this life in order to live it up in the next?

When we approach the Gospels, many of us tend to conflate stories from one with those of another, thus giving ourselves what we imagine is a fuller picture of who Jesus was. While that’s a natural thing to do, it does sometimes lead to problems.

I’ve always imagined a Feeding of the Five Thousand as Jesus doing all the breaking and distributing while the apostles act as waitstaff running back and forth to a busy kitchen: break and distribute, break and distribute, break and distribute, seemingly without end. But there’s another way to look at this.

…we grovel before a false god. God, in truth, isn’t cruel. God isn’t vengeful. The Top-Down God, the God of State and Empire, may be like that, but the Top-Down God doesn’t exist. It’s simply a convenient lie we tell each other to manipulate ourselves and those around us.

The Church has a long history of taking snippets of what Paul has written and putting them back together in ways that contradict what the apostle was actually trying to say.

We choose, whether through habit or active intent, who or what we listen to, and our actions always reveal that reality.

Unlike our associations, in the Bible, “sin” isn’t necessarily a moral issue. It includes moral failings, but the concept is much broader than that. It’s far more along the lines of failure blended with or possibly even wrapped in decay.

The entire story of the Early Church is one of people thinking they’re on the inside and being forced to reckon with the reality that God has indeed included those they consider to be outsiders or inferior as their peers.

Understanding the Incarnation Cycle can break this illusion. Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension are more than just a story; they’re a new concept of Reality.

Someone who says they’re an adherent of a particular public figure but chooses not live in line with that person’s teaching and character doesn’t actually care about their supposed model; they just hope to appropriate some of their reputation.

Jesus’s being “the way” is something of an expansion on his claim to be “the gateway.” The disciples already realize that Jesus is there to love and serve, to break down barriers…

There’s a propensity throughout history for those of us who claim the title “Christian” to use it as a badge of superiority or exclusion.

Maybe Mary had trouble seeing Jesus because she was, as yet, unwilling to see herself in him. Maybe the disciples couldn’t recognize him because they weren’t ready to acknowledge his presence in those around them.

We may have learned to associate “God with us” almost exclusively with Christ’s birth, but the point where we find ourselves today—Good Friday—might just be the most appropriate time to consider the depth of Emmanuel’s implications.

Jesus never tells anyone they have to be friends with their enemies…and that’s good, because the love associated with friendship is something that can only happen naturally as people get to know one another. But with agape, there’s a choice, and that’s the kind of love Jesus demands…

What we do with God’s gifts is on us, not God. What we do with God’s Son—any of God’s children, really—is equally on us.

In the ancient world, breath was both far more vast and far more intimate than we English speakers tend to think of it. In the modern world, my breath is mine alone—something which slips into my lungs I then exhale as waste once my body is done with it. Not so for our predecessors.