So between the slave marching up with a litany of accusations and then not even having made an effort with the ruler’s money, it’s pretty easy to understand why someone would get so angry in response.

If they’re angry at all.

“People. Only people.” is rewiring a lot about what I’ve understood Jesus to say, too. Statements I always viewed as a little bit hyperbolic or needlessly expository have taken on a completely new significance.

The things we long and live for—the things we even steal or kill for—hold no importance whatsoever. What we view as common is where God puts the most attention. What we ignore, misuse, or treat as expendable is what God views as precious. You don’t have to mine, mint, or print the currency of God’s kingdom.

…we’ll need to deal with at least two questions today. First, what is the greater context of this parable? And second, what was it about the last being first and the first being last that our scripture writers hoped would help people faithfully live out the Gospel?

In the traditional rendering of today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “you cannot serve God and Mammon.” Mammon was an ancient personification of the economy or wealth. But frankly, Mammon isn’t the only god Jesus would want to warn us about.

I began to realize that much of what I had deemed to be Biblical was actually theological. The Bible makes statements and tells stories—those things are biblical. In addition, faithful, well-meaning people have used logic, experience, and philosophy to draw additional conclusions from what the Bible says—that’s theology.

If you listen to alternative radio, you’ve probably heard [“Hero”] in frequent rotation over the last few months. The band Weezer emerged around the time I was in high school and hit its heyday during my first round of grad school. This, their newest song, captures some of the deeply rooted cynicism of my era. Generation X has tried pretty much everything to get some attention.

We Americans have a very weird way of viewing the world. “Rugged individualism” is normal to us, but it’s a fairly recent philosophical development in the grand scheme of history. Because our society tends to focus on every person as an individual, we often think of statements we read in the Bible as applying to each one of us personally. But that’s not the way people understood life when the Bible was written.

Overall, the point of a wisdom text—and all Scripture, regardless of its literary genre, is inherently bent toward wisdom—is to guide its readers along a general pathway through life.

So what about ourselves? Who do we serve? To whom—or what—are we sacrificing those around us today? What do our actions tell us about the nature of the one from whom we take our commands?

The Gospel is a radical message, and it is not what we so often try to turn it into. It is not necessarily the “good news” we want to hear. It doesn’t sit well trapped behind church walls. It does not inherently approve of our perceptions and presuppositions. The Gospel is not designed to support or bring stability to our version of reality or truth. It’s meant to challenge us, to undermine the perceived authority of the present, and to reshape it into God’s image. It’s an announcement of peace and a battle cry rolled into one: comfort for the oppressed and judgment for those of us reckless enough to think that God is on our side.

“…despite her subtlety, despite her habit of evading our senses just as we notice her, Spirit—breath—does have a mysterious, nearly immeasurable power. Breath never forces itself upon anyone, yet every body desires it. Small as it is, common as it is, unremarkable as it is, breath is the key difference between life and death. It’s all that separates a human body from a human being. Holding all the potential of a newborn’s cry, the promise of youth and growth and maturity still too come, it retains its brittleness and frailty, the easy loss caused by a knee choking the spirit from a man’s body.”

…you can’t just look at your thoughts—your opinions, perceptions, ideas, or beliefs—to determine if you’re following Christ. Just like we understand that doing good works doesn’t bring us any special favor with God, saying the right words, thinking the right thoughts, or learning the right doctrine has never done a thing for any of us either. Our inner dialog is largely irrelevant in the face of our cosmic destiny.

In the Gospel of John, Biblical scholars normally treat Jesus’ “I am” statements as significant pointers to his Messianic claims. Unfortunately the Church has often used those same statements as a means of division, expressing distinction, exclusion, and superiority for ourselves. We read “I am the gate” or “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” but instead of looking at the metaphor Jesus is trying to show us, we put all our focus on the word “the.”

…there’s something to be gained from a culture that can recognize and name its gods.  We Westerners like to think we’re above all that, that we’ve evolved beyond the limiting need for something as silly as mythical gods.  We’re too smart and educated—too scientific and rational—for those kinds of stories.  And that is exactly what makes us completely blind to “the gods” and their manipulations, ultimately leading us to worship those gods without even realizing it.

Today marks our first Sunday in the season of Lent, and we open with the passage from the Hebrew Bible commonly referred to as “the Fall of Man.” Over the ages, people have speculated about what kind of fruit it was that Adam and Eve ate. Some say a banana, some a pomegranate. If you go by the art world, you’d be sure to think it was an apple. Shannon and I like to joke that it was a quince.

Today we mark the beginning of Lent, the season of the Church Year dedicated to repentance and renewal. We use this time to prepare ourselves for death and crucifixion—not only that of Jesus Christ, but also our own. For a little over seven weeks, we’ll walk this path toward Good Friday together with all the communion of the saints, joining our Savior on his final trek to Jerusalem, where he will experience the same betrayal and loss that so often mark our own lives.

“…I wonder if that isn’t what we should be looking for when we read about the Transfiguration.  Maybe Jesus’ transformation (which is all that “transfiguration” means) is less about a display of superior divinity overwhelming inferior humanity and more about a revelation of another level—a more extensive way—of being human.”

I’ve spent my entire life in the Church.  I was born on a Tuesday, and I wouldn’t be surprised if my mom and dad had already carried me to a service the following weekend.  By the age of three or four, I was in Sunday School each week learning about the Bible.  I never spent any time in public schools.  Instead, I attended Christian schools throughout my entire education: kindergarten, elementary school, high school, college, and even my first round of grad school—not to mention my last three years in seminary.

Although Jesus talks about heaven a lot, the most concrete description he gives is “the throne of God.”  He also says it’s somewhere “neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.”  He compares it to quite a few different things—or people—in his parables.  And although Jesus does occasionally reference it as something future, strangely enough, he seems to talk about the kingdom of heaven most often as if it exists in the present.