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In the Kingdom of Earth
In the Kingdom of Earth, selfishness rules and violence is justified. How far such things are from what Jesus offers: a kin-dom of heaven. Proper 22A | Matthew 21:33-46 Several years ago, Rose and I took a trip to northwestern Michigan. We stayed in a bed and breakfast near Traverse City and drove up the…
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God is active with us
8. When we feed the multitudes, welcome the stranger, and heal the sick, we are also with Jesus. There are essentially two ways Christians speak about the material of their faith. We can speak literally or metaphorically. And for those outside the faith, it can be really hard to tell the difference between the two. Just…
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To Create Withness
7. But in Jesus, we are given human responsibility to create withness with one another. The nature of God is withness. From the divine dance of the Holy Trinity to the very withness of Jesus, all of God’s glory is withness. What I mean by “withness” is presence–the eternal and constant being with someone. And this idea of…
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In the Joys and the Junk
6. Through all the great upheavals in history, God has been with the people. The quintessential question of the confused is to ask “Where is God?” In the midst of tragedy, we ask it. “Where is God?” The presupposition of the question is that God isn’t there. But why? Because we first define God as the…
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When a name is about us
5. Even the name given to Moses expresses “withness” saying I will be there howsoever I will be. One of the worst kept secrets in the world is that God’s name isn’t “God.” It’s like the town drunk who we we all know [wink, wink] doesn’t have a problem. We all agree to pretend like it is…
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With them in the desert
4. God promised to be with the Hebrew people in liberation from Egypt and desert wandering. For years, I’ve been drawn to the wanderings and grumblings text in Exodus. I love it as a story all by itself. But read up against the story which immediately precedes it, It plays like absurdist drama. Imagine growing…
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God came to be with us
3. For in Jesus, taking a human form and raised from the fragility of birth, God came to be with us. The most profound example of “With” is that God chose to be with us in the form of Jesus. This is the greatest proof that one’s being with another is the central act of…
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“With” is the ultimate expression of faith
2. In the word “with” we have the ultimate expression of Christian community, concern, and faith. When Jesus says For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. he’s assuring his followers that he’ll be there. It took centuries of scholars to deconstruct the idea of being there with…
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