Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

healing

  • Why Trouble the Teacher (Day 17 of A Simple Lent) Monday One of the most profound tools in the evangelist’s toolbox is the literary frame. It’s surprising, really when you think about it. You’re telling a pretty amazing story about a dude who can heal people and control the weather. The substance of the story…

  • This final moment has a blind man in front of them, but can they see him? He is shouting for Jesus, but can they hear him? Is the man like a tree, walking to them? Are his shouts like the buzz of a mosquito? Do they not understand yet, even now, at the end of…

  •   Jesus doesn’t force us to believe. Jesus doesn’t want us to work on the earnestness of our belief: just believe harder – believe more – believe right: to force us to get it. Jesus gives us signs and invitations and these opportunities to see something truly profound: to see this life with a sense…

  • Could it be that we’ve already taken Jesus more seriously than that? That we’ve spent 2000 years trying to bring the Kingdom closer? And could it also be that we are far from being done? That there are many among us who need to be restored, both to this community and within this congregation? Could…

  • The sort of liberation Jesus offers comes with a helping of crazy. Proper 5B  |  Mark 3:20-35, 1 Samuel 8:4-20 Mistaking GOD for a demon This morning we truly begin the season after Pentecost. Unlike the other seasons of Advent, Christmas, the season after the Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, this season does not have an…

  • A mother-in-law’s gratitude at odds with the public spectacle. Jesus leaves town, perhaps because of his notoriety, but perhaps also because the people are more interested in him, in the wonders that he has done, in the power that he possesses. And not in what GOD is calling him to actually do. Not in what…